Ever since Pokemon GO started rolling out in early July, Niantic Labs have been promising that new pocket monsters will continually be added to their augmented reality (AR) mobile game. Four months later, the San Francisco-based developer is seemingly on the verge of delivering on that promise. More specifically, the Android version of Pokemon GO was just updated to build 0.45.0 yesterday. A dedicated gaming community called The Silph Road — the very same one which recently discovered secret mechanics in the game — quickly proceeded to analyze the new APK file and made some significant discoveries.
For starters, the game’s code now references 99 new Pokemon with Pokedex index numbers ranging from #152 (Chikorita) to #251 (Celebi). That’s right, Niantic is seemingly preparing the second generation of pocket monsters for their in-game debut. Unfortunately, these additions won’t suddenly happen overnight given how the Moveset data found in the game’s code doesn’t account for new Pokemon. In other words, Niantic will have to roll out another app update before we can start catching the second generation of pocket monsters.
In addition to that, the latest Pokemon GO build also adds a new Move to the game called Transform. It’s a quick move which has its own animation sequence of the same name, and while the inspected code doesn’t attribute it to the elusive Ditto, this could suggest that Ditto is finally ready to make an appearance in Pokemon GO. The speculation is that it’s possible that Transform isn’t a part of Ditto’s arsenal simply because it isn’t an actual move but an event which happens each time Ditto enters combat. As most Pokemon fans already know, this pocket monster always transforms into its opponent and mimics their moves. Ditto has been referenced in the game’s code ever since the vanilla version of Pokemon GO but players are yet to encounter this evasive creature in the wild.
Last but not least, build 0.45.0 also comes packed with some code referencing an anti-gym-lockout mechanic. This is another feature Pokemon GO players have been requesting for months as gym takeovers in highly populated areas were often a nuisance because of players who would quickly occupy freed gyms while people participating in takeovers were still waiting to exit the combat screen. Niantic is yet to officially comment on any of these upcoming changes, but more information should be available shortly.