Pokemon GO Might Get Legendary Pokemon & PvP Battles in Summer

Pokemon GO trainers could be in for a hot summer. In a recent interview, a Niantic higher-up mentioned that they’re working on several new features that they plan to implement, such as PvP battles, a bigger importance to your team choice, and, last but not least, Legendary Pokemon. The reason cited for postponing these features is the great success of the game.

There are several features that players of Pokemon GO have been asking for pretty much ever since launch day, including battles between players and a deeper multiplayer experience. The premise of the game, aside from catching Pokemon, has revolved around cooperation between team members; going out and diving into the augmented reality with friends or meeting new people. However, the enthusiasm has been fizzling out lately, because, if we’re honest, there’s not much to it. You team up to bring down an enemy Gym, you get you XP and other stuff, and that’s that.

Fortunately, Niantic seems to be hard at work to implement some new features and give more oomph to the social interaction aspect of gameplay. In a recent interview with Brazilian outlet O Globo (via Go Nintendo), Niantic’s VP of strategic partnerships Mathieu de Fayet talked a bit about what the developers are planning to implement this summer. He said:

Due to the large success of the game, we had to delay some planned innovations. Right now we are working on some that are due to hit this summer (in the northern hemisphere), such as giving more value to the choice of the teams, releasing Legendary Pokémon and introducing PvP. One thing we learned with Ingress was that the game can sustain itself if we are able to create social interactions amongst players, and we are working on that.

Just what these new features will bring to the table remains to be seen. Dataminers have previously encountered mentions of “raids”, meaning that Pokemon GO might start giving a stronger in-game incentive for players to go out and conquer gyms together. As for the Legendary Pokemon, well, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to catch one? Last year, one player managed to catch a Legendary, through a goof on Niantic’s side, and the community went nuts. Just imagine what will happen when the rare beasts get officially introduced to the game.