That didn’t take long. As of Thursday evening on the East Coast, 80 new Pokemon from the Johto region are now available to catch in Pokemon Go. Niantic announced that new Pokemon would roll out soon on the app on Wednesday morning, but we didn’t think that the team meant it would be ready within 48 hours.
As Niantic revealed in its blog post, the new update brings 80 creatures from the Gold and Silver entries of the Pokemon franchise to the mobile game. Full release notes were published shortly after the update arrived:
- Over 80 additional Pokémon originally discovered in the Johto region can be caught.
- Gender-specific variations of select Pokémon can be caught.
- Added new encounter mechanics.
- Added Poké Ball and Berry selection carousels to the encounter screen.
- Added two new Berries.
- Added new avatar outfit and accessory options.
- Added new night-mode map and encounter music.
- Added bonus Candies for catching Evolved Pokémon.
- Implemented Apple Watch connection stability improvement.
- Various bug fixes.
- Minor text fixes.
We knew about the new Pokemon, the Berry carousel and several of the other features on that list, but there are some surprises as well. For example, we didn’t know that gender-specific Pokemon were coming to Pokemon Go this early. We also didn’t know that bonus candies would be awarded for catching evolved Pokemon, but a datamine revealed that a night map and new music would be coming to the game.
There are probably more secrets to discover as well, so stop reading and get downloading:
- App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pokemon-go/id1094591345?mt=8
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlabs.pokemongo
We’ll update this post if any other shocking revelations are made within the next few hours.
UPDATE: It appears that the servers aren’t handling the update all that well:
We're currently seeing an incredible number of Trainers logging in. Thanks for bearing with us as we address latency issues!
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) February 16, 2017
