Pokemon GO’s newest datamine from PokeMiners revealed several new assets included in the game’s files with one of the most significant being the new “Follower Pokemon.” According to PokeMiners, Followers will apparently be treated similarly to an item in-game, being attached to an “address” for a Pokemon rather than an individual Pokemon’s ID. The post speculates that the Follower feature may be a way for players to track certain Pokemon, potentially for the game’s Catch Card or tracking specific kinds of Pokemon nearby.

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The massive datamine also revealed the potential addition of Shiny Probability to Encounter Rewards related to Quests and GO Battle League. The leak suggests that the new inclusion lends itself to different encounter types within the game featuring different probabilities of finding Shiny Pokemon. The shiny probability was notably not attached to any individual Pokemon’s data, meaning a Pokemon’s shiny rate won’t be able to be assessed unless it appears in GO Battle League. Pokemon GO has not made any official statement regarding differing shiny rates for different types of encounters.

The leaked update included several other features alongside Shiny Probability and Followers with smaller quality-of-life changes being peppered throughout. Players will now be able to ready up in-game for Raids, possibly leading to quicker load times in raids with all players readying up. Team Rocket encounters in Pokemon GO have also been changed with multiple different types of encounters added, suggesting they may be used for the rumored Routes feature. Smaller updates included Pokemon heights and weights added to PvP, as well as visual updates to Raids and Pokemon visual effects.

Pokemon GO has already seen a large amount of new content added throughout 2022, with more still planned from Niantic for the year’s close. Pokemon GO’s Season of Light recently began as the last in-game season of the year, with new Legendaries and time-based features planned through December. Many fans have also speculated Pokemon GO may receive new regional forms or Pokemon with the release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet in November. Niantic looks to give fans of Pokemon GO plenty of reason to go out and find new Pokemon throughout 2022’s closing months.

Pokemon GO is available now for mobile devices.

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Source: PokeMiners