Over 80 New Gen 2 Pokemon Coming To Pokemon Go This Week

Thanks to the usual onslaught of leaks, we knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but it appears the former timeframe is more accurate, as Niantic has just announced a rather large update headed to Pokemon Go later this week. More than 80 new critters from the Pokemon Gold and Silver games, including the starters Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile, will be making their debut in the update, which also marks the arrival of some improvements to the mobile title’s Encounter feature as well as new items to help you on your quest to complete Pokemon Go‘s ever-expanding Pokedex.

“When you encounter Pokemon in the wild, don’t be surprised if they react in new ways as you’re trying to catch them,” says Niantic in its blog post, adding that new item carousels will now randomly pop up whenever you encounter a wild Pokemon. Much like existing PokeStops, these offer various rewards including Berries and Poke Balls. For someone who doesn’t live in or even close to a big town or city, the ability to obtain such important items without having to visit a PokeStop is certainly a bonus, but we’ll see if they show up frequently enough to make a big enough impact.

Joining the above changes are two new Berry types – Nanab and Pinap – which slow the movement of wild Pokemon and double the amount of Candy awarded for your next catch respectively. If nothing else, the former should help to conserve your limited stock of Poke Balls. Owing to the arrival of new Gen 2 ‘Mons, existing members of the Kanto Pokedex will also be able to evolve when the patch drops, so make sure to keep hold of those Onix and Scyther for now, at least.

Expect the full rundown of which new creatures are available in the update when it goes live later this week. In the meantime, Pokemon Go‘s Valentine’s event is due to end in a few hours, so if you’ve yet to nab yourself a Chansey or Clefable, get hunting!