Niantic
It looks like Pokemon Go is officially teasing the Player-vs-Player (PvP) element.
One thing many players have asked for since the launch of the game in 2016 is PvP outside of the Gyms and it seems like that wish will be coming true in the near future.
The official Pokemon Go Twitter page tweeted out an image with a trainer standing on what appears to be a battlefield with the familiar exclamation point over her head. In the handheld Pokemon games the exclamation point indicates a trainer sees you and they want to battle with you.
There was no text to go along with the image so we’re just left with speculation but it seems pretty clear cut what the team is teasing here. There’s no timetable for PvP but according to an article by Eurogamer (via Gram), the game is looking at into releasing it before the end of 2018. This gives players just another month of waiting if that timeframe is going to be met.
The current battling system leaves a lot to be desired so it’d make a lot of sense if the battling was reworked, at least in the player-vs-player element. We’ve sort of seen a glimpse at how this could potentially work by the latest releases of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee on the Nintendo Switch.
Those two new titles take the capturing mechanic from Pokemon Go but keep the traditional battle styles we’ve grown accustomed to in the past games. It’d make a lot of sense if Niantic were to transfer this battle style over to Pokemon Go as we’ve seen the formula works time and time again.
Again, all of this is just speculation for now and we’ll have more to share once the PvP aspect is officially announced.
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