Niantic has announced new social features they will soon be introducing into Pokemon Go. In an attempt to encourage players to start meeting up again for Local Raids, the new features aim to make it easier to find new communities and to communicate with each other. The downside is the cheap remote raid passes will be discontinued.
How Pokemon Go will make local raids easier to find
The new social features will come as part of a standalone Niantic app that will be rolled out over the next few months. Players will be able to create local communities to find other local players more easily, as well as manage their friends across all of Niantic’s titles. There will be direct and group messaging, as well as the ability to create and share local raid battle events. These events can be set up to send reminders and invites too.
Rewards will be changing too. Mega Energy and Rare Candy XL will be included as rewards for completing local raid battles. However, while the 1 PokéCoin Event Box will continue to be available in the shop, the box will only include “a rotating array of items.” Remote Raid Passes will no longer be included in the box from May 23 and live game director Michael Steranka confirmed to Polygon there “won’t be other ways to receive free Remote Raid Passes”. Instead, passes can still be purchased from the shop but they’ll cost 100 PokéCoins for a single pass, or 250 PokéCoins for a pack of three passes. “There’s a chance” they may be included in special event bundles in the shop in the future.
In other news, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards became the latest Nintendo 64 title to be added to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack today. Elsewhere, the Epic Mega Sale has discounted more than 1600 games and DLC over on the Epic Games Store.
