It was promised on Saturday and arrived on Tuesday, but the Pokemon GO Buddy System update is here at last.
Niantic must be so busy working on Pokemon GO that its team members can’t even tell what day of the week it is. Poor people are probably locked in casino-style rooms with no windows, no clocks and no way to tell which way is out.
While we hope that’s not actually true, it might help explain why the much anticipated Pokemon GO Buddy System update, which Niantic said would drop over the weekend, only hit the App Store and Google Play this afternoon.
Better late than never in this case, as people who are still digging this summer’s mobile gaming phenomenon have been chomping at the bit for it. The Pokemon GO Buddy System allows players to choose a specific Pokemon as a pal (think Ash and his Pikachu) who then accompanies the Trainer as they walk.
Unfortunately, the Buddy Pokemon doesn’t appear with your avatar on the in-game map, but they do appear in a small portrait in the bottom-left corner of the main game screen. Your new BFF will also show up whenever you check your Trainer profile, and it’s easy to swap for another one with just a few taps.
Why do you want to use this new feature? To make more use of your exercise time, of course. Now in addition to hatching eggs, the distance walked can generate candy, as the Buddy Pokemon will produce extra Pokemon Candy every few kilometers.
The update also includes the following fixes and additions, according to the developer notes:
- Added Pokemon GO Plus support.
- Fixed an issue where Eggs would sometimes hatch without displaying the animation.
- Fixed network reliability issues.
- Minor text fixes.
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We’ll have to wait and see if it was worth the wait, and more content would still be welcomed, but this is one update whose time had more than come. Now please let those poor devs get some rest.