Pokemon GO will eventually have trading, breeding, and a training system

Niantic Labs filled nearly 6,000 seats at a San Diego Comic-Con auditorium to talk about Pokemon GO, and some juicy information was on tap from the company’s CEO John Hanke. The Verge reports Niantic has discussed future development and strategies for the game while they’re currently focused on deploying it around the world.

For starters, Hanke confirmed that a trade mechanic is in the works. We’re not sure how deep the mechanic will be, but we imagine at minimum we’ll get a simple 1-to-1 trade with someone, and we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that Pokemon who can evolve through a trade (such as Abra and Poliwhirl) won’t have to be subject to a torturous dose of candy.

Apparently, the company also wants to work on a more engaging training mechanic, too. This is something that fans are likely pleased to hear as the current method of training a Pokemon — which consists of giving it the morally gray equivalent to a steroid powder — is quite dull.

Pokemon handheld games use mini-games to train your Pokemon.

Beyond all this, though, are things Niantic is exploring for the future. There are some elements that the company is thinking of developing for Pokemon GO that may or may not ever work out. This includes more customization at PokeStops, such as one that could turn it into a Pokemon Center for healing your friends after battle. Breeding was also a subject that was brought up again.

On the subject of new Pokemon, the company certainly has plans to keep expanding the cast of PokeBall-dwelling characters in your pocket, however it seems as if they haven’t yet worked out the specifics on how they’ll be introduced. We’d imagine a simple game update will suffice in actually getting the Pokemon into the game, but we’re dreaming of a special launch event Pokemon Safari where you can only find the newly-added Pokemon for a short period of time.

In any case, we shouldn’t expect the new Pokemon to surface too soon as there are still quite a few we have yet to be able to get our hands on. We also don’t know when any of the discussed features and ideas will be headed into the game. In the meantime, though, Niantic has finally revealed the team leaders for Team Valor, Team Mystic, and Team Instinct, so have some fun with that in your ongoing quest to defend your gym’s sigil.