More Team Rocket bad guys are being added to Pokémon Go, as Niantic reveal their plans to upgrade the game’s AR features.
Team Rocket has had a major boost in Pokémon Go, with new Team Leader battles and hints at the inclusion of evil boss Giovanni.
The new features aren’t available everywhere yet, but are currently being trialled in London, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Austin.
If that’s where you live then you’ll find that when you beat ordinary Team Rocket grunts they drop ‘Mysterious Components’ and if you’re able to collect all six you can make a new scanner called the Rocket Radar.
We’ve received reports of Trainers finding Mysterious Components in a few parts of the world. ? It looks to be a contained phenomenon. For now… ? #TeamGORocket pic.twitter.com/kZPRFpYFdd
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 5, 2019
Once you have the Rocket Radar up and running you can scan Pokéstops to find a boss battle and fight Team Rocket leaders Cliff, Arlo, or Sierra and their shadow pokémon.
Beat them and you get a shiny shadow pokémon and the Unova stones needed to evolve some Generation V pokémon.
Exactly how you upgrade the radar enough to find Giovanni isn’t clear yet, but that seems to be where everything is leading.
More Team Rocket isn’t the only thing being added to the game though, as a separate update from developer Niantic has promised… co-op petting?
The blog post is mostly about improving the game’s AR visuals but reveals that soon friends will be able to see your buddy pokémon and join in with you petting and feeding them.
The improved AR does seem quite a step up and it’ll be cross-platform as well, between iOS and Android.
It sounds like it’s a while off at the moment though, with Niantic promising it only in the ‘months ahead’.
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