Pokemon Go update includes ‘appraisal’ feature to tell people which Pokemon are best, but very little else
Pokemon Go has lost about a third of the players that were on it at its peak – over a month that has been hit by server issues and attacks from hackers
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Pokemon Go has finally issued another update – and it doesn’t do a great deal.
The app was once the biggest thing in the world but has over the last month settled to just become very big indeed. At the game’s peak, 45 million people were playing it each day, but that has since dropped to 30 million – partly driven by a natural drop off but also reflective of the problems the game has been hit by.
Now the company has issued yet another update intended at addressing problems with the game as well as adding new features.
The primary change – and the only one obvious to players of the game – is the addition of a new “appraisal” feature, intended to let people understand more about the Pokemon that they catch.
The tool lets anyone highlight a specific Pokemon and find out about its strengths and weaknesses, so that it can be used more effectively in gyms. It’s accessed by heading to the Pokemon’s page and clicking the round button in the lower right corner of the screen, and choosing the “Appraisal” option.
But the update doesn’t bring any other changes to the game. All the notes mention is that the developers “are still working hard on several new and exciting features to come in the future of Pokémon GO”.
Giving such an update is very rare in update notes or changelogs – which are traditionally used to say what has been altered in a game, not what is going to be. It likely points to the dissatisfaction that many players have with the developers, with players complaining that updates to the game are minimal, developers say little about what they have planned, and that most of the changes appear intent on kicking trainers off the service.
The update notes also say that the game has received “Minor bot fixes”.
The update has been pushed out to iOS and Android and should arrive on devices in the next few days if it hasn’t already.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments