Pokemon Go’s next major feature will be PvP battles, arriving later in 2018

Niantic’s head of product marketing in EMEA has confirmed that the developer is working towards offering player versus player battles as its next big feature for Pokémon Go. 

The comments came in an interview with Gram, a Polish publication. The product marketing head, Anne Beuttenmüller, said that the company is currently working on the mode, which should arrive in an update before the end of the year.

This feature will come as part of a wider push to make the social elements of the game more appealing, and will also include improvements to the game’s recently released trading functionality.

However, beyond the news that the functionality is coming, we don’t have too many more details on what form it will take. The game’s current raid and gym battles are fairly simplistic affairs where the strongest Pokémon usually triumphs regardless of each player’s individual skill, so hopefully any PvP update will also come alongside changes to how the game’s battles take place.

Related: Pokémon Go Hacks

Slow and steady with the updates

Although the mainstream craze that accompanied Pokémon Go’s initial release has now died down, it still has a strong player base thanks to developer Niantic’s frequently issued updates for the game.

As well as adding Pokémon from the second and third generation of the games, bringing the count of collectible monsters from 151 up to around 439, Niantic has also recently added trading, which players have been demanding ever since the game was first released.

With the addition of PvP battles, the game will now have received more or less all the features Niantic originally spoke about when the game was first released.

What functionality would you like to see added to Pokémon Go? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook @TrustedReviews.