Big changes - and Gen 4 - are coming to Pokémon Go soon
The news Weavile been waiting for.
Strap on your backpacks and hike up those jorts, trainers - a big update has been announced for Pokémon Go.
The big news is the arrival of Gen 4 Pokémon in-game, which are arriving "soon", according to Pokémon's official blog post and a teaser video, which you can watch below.
There's no Stephen Fry doing a David Attenborough impression this time, but there are several teases of the Sinnoh-region critters we first saw in the Nintendo DS games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. The ones teased seem to be the Grass-, Fire-, and Water-type starters Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup respectively, plus the ominous Ghost- and Dragon-type Giratina, one of the game's toughest legendaries.
That's not all though - there are also changes coming to Pokémon "migration and behaviour," in the form of a reduction in the effects of weather on Pokémon spawns in-game, a general increase in the variety of Pokémon that appear and likewise a wider variety of them showing up in 'nests' like parks and nature reserves.
There's also a big reshuffle coming to the competitive side of the game, with Pokémon's stats - broken down in Go to the more simple threesome of Attack, Defense, and Stamina - getting rebalanced, which will mean a change in the value of your Pokémon's CP.
Interestingly, there's a mention of "closing the gap between Pokémon with high and low HP", a change in Defense and Stamina that means "Pokémon with high defensive stats to be valuable by outlasting opponents in battle rather than these Pokémon merely taking too long to defeat," and a general lowering of Defense values to "help narrow the gap between Pokémon with the highest defensive stats and other Pokémon".
The fact Dioxys has just been released - and, unlike it's top-tier status in the mainline games, has proved largely useless in Go thanks to the way Go's stats are calculated - may have something to do with the rework.
Even if Deoxys had nothing to do with it, though, the changes are welcome. Pokémon Go's most dedicated players have been crying out for a balance sweep for some time, with things staying pretty stale (looking at you, Blissey) in the Gym scene since early 2017's introduction of Gen 2.
Exciting times then, but there's no official word on when exactly the updates will hit, so if you're itching to get started on your Sinnoh 4 'dex, you can peruse our big Pokémon Go Gen 4 guide - that also helpfully includes details on Pokémon from current generations that you'll soon be able to evolve.