In an interview with Polygon at this year’s Game Developers Conference, Tatsuo Nomura outlined the direction they want to go in for the future of Pokemon Go. The upcoming trading system in Pokemon Go will officially be done by proximity, meaning you’ll have to meet up with other people to exchange their Pokemon.
The Pokemon Company, Niantic says, planned for Pokemon Go to be an experience that brought players together, exploring. The only way to get Pokemon out of your region would be to travel, or see someone who came from afar. This comes at a bit of a shock to rural players, who were hoping that the online experience would assist them a bit. In a recent update, Niantic even added changes to the game that would put more Pokemon on hiking trails, which are more often found outside of cities.
They’re still working on the system, saying “We’re still trying to come up with an answer [to trading] that makes sense so it doesn’t kill the game…If we fail this, we can easily kill the game.”
Pokemon Go has been improving and changing quickly, to keep up with the vision of where the game should be headed. With the weather warming up again, Niantic hopes that players can go out and enjoy the game and their friends more often, and are making changes to reflect that.