A recent tweet by the official Pokémon GO account spurred a flurry of speculation about Party Play, a feature that allows Trainers to form parties and play together, while enjoying bonuses for playing as a group.
Party Play has been a long running rumour in the Pokémon GO community, and Niantic’s latest post finally confirms that there is something in development. Here’s the official teaser post:
👀 🥳 #GOStartTheParty pic.twitter.com/yqE79SFe6r
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) October 11, 2023
October 12 update: Niantic officially confirms that the feature is named Party Play in a logo reveal posted on Twitter (X).
#GOPartyPlay is coming soon, and you’re invited to #GOStartTheParty with us! ✉️
Stay tuned… 👀 pic.twitter.com/uFoeGPQJro
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) October 12, 2023
Thanks to the unofficial data mining channels, we know a few early details about Party Play, but all of these are unconfirmed rumours, and they should be taken with a grain of salt!
Maybe the feature ends up looking like data mining suggests, maybe it doesn’t – that’s the reality of data mining features. None of this information is provided, approved or sanctioned by Niantic or The Pokémon Company International.
With that being said, here’s what data mined information suggests about Party Play:
- Party Play allows Trainers to create parties of up to 4 Trainers, and to get bonuses and earn rewards while playing with the group
- You need to be near the party host to join, and you can either join using a code, or by scanning a QR code
- You can see other Party members on the overworld map, and you can decide whether or not you want to share location and your avatar
- By playing in a party, you use your Fast Attacks to get Party Power, which increases the damage of your next Charged Attack
- You can also complete Party Challenges to earn rewards, and we don’t know what the rewards are
Curiously, the first glimpse of party play being tested has leaked 21 days ago, and was reported on Reddit:
By everything we know right now, it looks like Party Play seems to borrow gameplay feature from Pikmin where you can walk with other player friends in game, or even from Monster Hunter Now’s Part Up feature.
In Monster Hunter, you can group up with other players to hunt together, and we do hope Niantic lifts some of the quality of life features like automatic party disband, nearby player invites, and reporting inappropriate players.
We have no idea when the feature will go live, nor how Niantic is planning to roll it out, but we do expect it to arrive relatively soon. Maybe even next week? We’ll update you as we know.
