Pokémon Go Will Finally Add More from Generation II

Long after the initial phenomenon of last summer, Pokémon GO finally has a huge update coming out this week, with more than just new creatures to catch.

Last summer, it seemed like practically everyone went outside even in the heat to play Nintendo’s first real foray into mobile gaming: Pokémon GO. Let’s face it, catching Pokémon in the real world, even though they were just on your phone, turned out to be pretty cool, even if it killed your battery and your data caps at the same time. However, things leveled off as autumn and winter arrived.

Not even a release of a few new Pokémon in December revived interest. That all may very well change, though. Niantic has announced that over 80 new Pokémon will hit the mobile game sometime this week. Surprise!

A trailer also arrived:

That’s right: the starters of the Johto region, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile are among the newcomers to the game. In the above trailer, you can also spot Hoothoot, Hoppip, Crobat (itself an evolution of Golbat), Skarmory, Donphan, and Murkrow.

The same announcement also notes that “new Evolution items” will start appearing in the game at PokéStops. Could it be that the evolutionary stones from the games will start replacing the candy method for evolution? If so, could that mean that Eevee’s two Johto evolutions, Espeon and Umbreon, will also join the game? Adding the stones and shards would make it easier to control Eevee’s evolutions.

However, as we’ve previously noted, this still feels very late for any sort of update, and it’s poorly timed to boot for the United States. Places like New England could be dealing with a third snowstorm in under seven days. There’s a big chunk of the country who won’t return to the game because they’ll be trying to find a place to put all of the new snow.

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We’ll see if the addition of the new Pokémon results in a Poké-resurgence.