Pokémon GO leak: Shinies, genders, costumes, and more found hidden inside the latest update

It’s time again for another data mine, courtesy of the boys over at The Silph Road. Found buried inside the code of Pokemon GO’s latest 0.49.1 update — the one that started rolling out earlier today — were references to loads of new features and changes, some of which we’re expecting Niantic to unveil during their big announcement this Monday, December 12th. It’s a pretty huge leak, but if you don’t mind spoilers, read on:

• Pokemon gender – References to Pokemon gender were found in the app. Although it doesn’t say exactly why, gender sometimes affects the evolutions of specific Pokemon and can even be used in breeding, allowing users to mix and match moves depending on the parents.
• Shiny Pokemon variants – Shiny Pokemon have been around for awhile now and although it’s little more than a super rare color variant of a Pokemon, it’s something that’s highly sought after from Pokemon enthusiasts.
• New avatar customization options – Avatar customization has always been limited in the game, but it seems Niantic has plans to expand this with new options found referencing new, sale, purchasable, and unlockable items. (The unlockable one definitely has our ears perked).
• Baby buddy position – The buddy position was first leaked ahead of the Buddy Pokemon update which allowed you to walk Pokemon for candies. Pokemon have a few positions, either following behind the player’s avatar, at the feet, or on the shoulder. The new “baby” position is new and could hint at Gen 2 Pokemon like Pichu.
• Pokemon costumes – References to Pokemon wearing unique costumes was also found in the code, with some even carrying some kind of “holiday” theme. It’s a pretty fun way to make things more festive for holiday events, but we’ll have to wait to see exactly what Niantic has in store.
• Other smaller tweaks– There were a few other tweaks found in the code, with new sponsors/placeholders for PokeStops, and small changes to Sightings/Nearby, but hardly worth mentioning.

Niantic has also removed all the 3D character models from the APK, where they’ll now be kept on the server side and loaded on demand. If nothing else, this was likely an attempt to hide the introduction of new Pokemon (Gen 2?) and prevent further spoilers in later updates.

It’s also worth mentioning again that it’s entirely possible that some — possibly even most — of these features wont be a part of Monday’s big Pokemon GO announcement, but for the ones left out, you can almost guarantee that they’ll be added at some point in the future. We’ll have to wait until Monday to learn more, but in the meantime, start making room for new Pokemon.

[via The Silph Road]