‘Pokemon GO’ Gen 2 Live This Week: Upcoming Features, Encounters, Items And More

It has taken a pretty long time, but Niantic is finally ready to announce the official rollout of Gen 2 monsters for its blockbuster mobile game, Pokemon GO. As the title’s millions of players feverishly wait for the Gen 2 monsters to go live, here are some interesting things to look forward to once the full contents of the upcoming update get released.

Niantic has not announced the date and time for the official rollout of the Pokemon GO Generation 2 update. The announcement, stated on the game’s official blog, simply stated that the rollout of more than 80 new creatures and a plethora of new features would happen later this week. Numerous Pokemon GO players have begun speculating on the update’s actual release date, with many stating that the Gen 2 creatures would most likely make their debut sometime during the weekend, possibly this coming Saturday or Sunday.

Despite the lack of an official release date for the Pokemon GO Gen 2 update, what has really managed to get numerous PoGO players excited is the idea of new creatures that would be made available in the game soon. After all, the release of the franchise’s second generation monsters has been around in the rumor mill for months now. Thus, the rollout of the game’s new content and features have been very much anticipated.

Gen 2! 80 NEW POKEMON ! BEST NEWS 2 WAKE UP TO!
@NianticLabs official video.@trnrtips @PokemonGo4NYC #PokemonGOhttps://t.co/6TENSB7bSa pic.twitter.com/cR57RMhIcq

— ???.. ??'? ??? ????? ? (@TeddyBurrYT) February 15, 2017

While Niantic has only provided a teaser as to what the upcoming Pokemon GO Gen 2 update would contain, avid PoGO fans from The Silph Road have managed to gather data from the game’s codes. With these, Niantic’s previews of new Pokemon, Evolutions, Encounter Gameplay, Berries, and Customization have been explored further.

The addition of more than 80 Pokemon has been expected for a while since references to the full lineup of Gen 2 creatures in PoGO were found months before. What is interesting, however, is that only 80 or so monsters would be rolled out this week. Including the baby Pokemon that were introduced last December, it appears that there is still a number of creatures that would be reserved for a later release, much like Ditto for Generation 1. With this in mind, players should expect that a number of Gen 2 creatures to be absent from the new lineup’s release later this week.

As for Evolutions in Pokemon GO, references to key items have been found in the game’s codes. Currently, The Silph Road team stated that items such as the Sun Stone, King’s Rock, Metal Coat, Dragon Scale, and Upgrade could be found in the mobile game’s files and are ready for release. Considering that these items are pivotal in evolving both Gen 1 and Gen 2 monsters, players of the hit augmented reality game could look forward to transforming their creatures in more ways than before.

Several aspects of encounters and overall gameplay are expected to undergo changes once the Pokemon GO Gen 2 update goes live. Data mining efforts have discovered that monsters encountered in the wild would be reacting in different ways than before. In the game’s current iteration, Pokemon encountered in the wild could only react to players’ prompts by jumping, waiting and attacking. Once the full Gen 2 update rolls out, players could expect Electric and Psychic Pokemon to react in unique ways. More movements for Hovering and Flying creatures are also expected.

Apart from the movement of the creatures themselves, the physics of Pokeball throwing is also expected to undergo certain updates. From the game’s current data, codes referring to “perfectlaunchspeed” and “launchangle” have been discovered. Thus, it appears that throwing Pokeballs would be a different experience for Pokemon GO players from here on out.

Among the things that have grabbed the attention of Pokemon GO fans was the mention of new berries that are set to be rolled out to the game. Niantic itself has announced the debut of two new berries that players can utilize during wild encounters with both Gen 1 and Gen 2 creatures. Apart from the popular Razz Berry, Pokemon GO would also offer players to the capability to use Nanab Berries and Pinap Berries. The former is known for slowing down Pokemon, while the latter doubles the candy that players could earn when catching a creature. Considering these items’ effects to the PoGO experience, there is a very good chance that they would be very popular in the game.

Lastly, avatar customization is set to undergo massive changes once the Pokemon GO Gen 2 update goes live later this week. The upcoming update is expected to introduce items that could be featured, purchased or unlocked in the game. These customization options include changes to the skin, shirt, pants, hat, shoes, eyes, gloves, socks, belt, necklace, and glasses of players’ avatars. With these new options in the mobile title, players could create highly personalized and unique characters, which is a far cry from the limited options available in the game’s current iteration.

With Generation 2 monsters going live later this week, Pokemon GO would most likely be one of the world’s most prolific mobile games once more. While the player base of the augmented reality title has dwindled over the last few months, the introduction of new content and new customization options might very well encourage a significant number of dormant Pokemon GO players to access and play the game once more. If that happens, PoGO might end up dominating the mobile gaming charts once more.

[Featured Image by Niantic]