Good Morning and Happy December!
So, when I logged onto my app this morning on the bus, I immediately noticed something BIG. As I always do, I clicked on the bottom right to see what Pokemon were in the area, and this is what I saw…
Have Niantic finally given us all what we’ve been asking for from the start?
What I saw before me was an update which Niantic rolled out yesterday evening. They have expanded their tracking system and given it a reboot, adding in photos of where the pokemon are located. Before I go into how this new feature works, I just want to say one thing. This is a genius move on Niantic’s part, with all of the events and updates they have been holding in the past few months to claw back their falling audience, will this mean bigger things are to come? Gen 2 maybe? A christmas event which sees us able to catch Moltres, Articuna and Zapdos?
Who knows, but for now, let me show you how this new feature works.
First of all, if you click onto a pokemon within the tracking window, you will be taken to a new screen. This screen displays your pokemon, in this case Slowpoke, and also shows you the location it is in. If you tap on the circle, it will also display the location a little bigger.
If you tap on the footprint, it will allow you to track this specific pokemon.
When you tap on the cross to get back to the main screen, the camera zooms out and shows you where the pokemon is relative to your current location. How cool is that? This means that you can literally walk straight up to the pokemon you want and catch it!
I didn’t actually go to catch the Slowpoke because I was on the bus on my way to work, however, because I left the tracking on for a while, I stumbled across another feature that Niantic have added.
You now get notified when the Pokemon is no longer at the location, which will save a lot of trailing around trying to find it when it’s already gone.
That’s the update in a nutshell, and I think it could be one of the best game play updates we’ve seen on Pokemon Go for a while!
Now all we need is Gen 2 to be rolled out in the next few weeks, and we’ll be set!