Two and a half years after the launch of Pokémon GO, it’s still missing one major staple of the main series games: player versus player battling.
That’s about to change.
In a series of teaser tweets this morning, the company confirmed that the battle system is on the way, noting only that it’s “coming soon.”
Hmm…what’s this? 🔍🤔 pic.twitter.com/EyCRUeVINd
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 30, 2018
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Offer ends March 13.San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 30, 2018
❗❗😮 pic.twitter.com/2Zg5PvNUv6
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 30, 2018
Get prepared… Trainer Battles are coming soon to Pokémon GO❗ #GOBattle pic.twitter.com/AUWyhNGlT7
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 30, 2018
Battling is the feature perhaps most demanded by the player base — particularly after the other oh-so-demanded feature, trading, was finally added around six months ago. While players have long been able to battle Pokémon stored in gyms, or work together to take down bigger/badder Pokémon that show up in raids, there’s never been the sort of real-time, head-to-head battling system for which the series is so well-known.
In August of this year, a rep for Niantic mentioned that their goal was to get it out by the end of the year. Given these tweets, it’s looking like that’ll happen.
