Pokemon Go to Get PvP by End of Year

Pokemon Go will get a player vs player (PvP) mode by the end of the year, a Niantic executive has hinted in a new interview. That is bound to please a subset of Pokemon fans who have been clamouring for PvP features present in most other Pokemon titles to be made available in the augmented reality game.

Speaking with Polish publication Gram – with translation provided by Google Translate – Niantic head of marketing (EMEA) Anne Beuttenmüller said the company is currently “working on the PvP mode” that is “the next thing that we want to add at the end of this year”. Beuttenmüller didn’t provide any details on how PvP would work, so we’ll just have to wait for an official announcement.

Alongside, Niantic is focused on improving the recently-introduced social features such as friends, trading and gifts. “We've just introduced an improvement so you can add a note to your friend,” Beuttenmüller said. “The point is that you can have many people on your friends list and do not remember who is who. So you can add a comment to that person. You can also segregate your friends list."

Released in July 2016, Pokemon Go became an instant hit with not just the Pokemon fan-base but a much larger community, bringing people and gaming out of homes thanks to Niantic tying real-world locations to gameplay. Though the game – available for Android and iOS – has long been past its peak, it still had nearly 150 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of May this year, making $104 million from in-app purchases.

If you're a fan of video games, check out Transition, Gadgets 360's gaming podcast. You can listen to it via Apple Podcasts or RSS, or just listen to this week's episode by hitting the play button below.