Trading, Gifting and Friends coming to Pokémon Go soon

Niantic has just announced some massive changes and additions coming to Pokemon Go soon and it includes trading of Pokemon, a new mechanic called gifting and the ability to add friends. The friends feature is coming first and will be out later this week.

Why would you add friends? You can keep tabs on how your friends are doing, what they’ve recently caught and more. You’ll need a trainer code to add them.

When you spin a photo at a Pokestop or Gym you’ll now get the chance of receiving a special gift. You can’t open the gift yourself but you can send it to a friend. In the gift will be a stash of items, a postcard from the Pokestop or Gym you got it from and the possibility of a special egg – these eggs will contain an Alolan form of a Pokemon originally from Kanto.

When you send a Gift to a friend or participate in a raid or Gym battle with them, you can increase your Friendship Level. As your Friendship Level builds, you’ll then unlock bonuses when you play together. For example, when you and a Great Friend participate in a Gym battle or Raid Battle together, you can earn an Attack bonus to give your Pokémon an edge! You can increase your Friendship Level once per day per friend.

You’ll also be able to build this Friendship Level by trading Pokemon, you’ll need to be at Level 10 or higher to do so, however. Completing a trade earns candy for the Pokemon you’ve traded away, the further away you caught the Pokemon as well the more candy you’ll get.

All trades are powered by Stardust, and some trades require more Stardust than others. As you build your Friendship Level with the friend you are trading with, you’ll find that you can complete the trade with much less Stardust.

There are some rules about what you can trade;

Certain Pokémon, such as a Legendary Pokémon, a Shiny Pokémon, or a Pokémon not currently in your Pokédex, require a Special Trade to complete, so keep that in mind before trading away that golden Magikarp! Special Trades can only occur once per day with a Great Friend or Best Friend, and it often requires a lot of Stardust to complete a Special Trade. Special Trades are a great way to show a friend how much you care!

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If you’re hoping to trade away your special 100% IV Pokemon as well, the IV will be re-rolled when you trade.

The ability to add friends will come to the game later this week, no word yet on the other features. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.