Pokémon Go’s new Party Play feature adds group challenges, easier raids

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has always pitched its mobile Pokémon game as a social experience. But when you’re actually playing it, it’s just your lonely trainer on-screen, walking the virtual world of Pokémon Go and catching ’em all.

That’s changing with a new feature called Party Play, a “fully shared in-game experience” which will let players team up in groups to walk together, catch Pokémon together, and battle in raids together, all while showing up on every party member’s screen. Raiding as a group will likely excite gamers. Pokémon GoPlayers will benefit the most from raiding as a group, since your team’s damage multiplier increases when you take on raid bosses.

Party Power increases the power of charged attacks in raids. It also doubles damage for fast attacks performed by members of a party. Niantic claims that a larger party will charge your Party Power faster. A media demonstration of Party Play showed a gameplay demo. Pokémon GoThe developers demonstrated a three-player party taking out a Mega Gardevoir fairly easily. (That’s certainly possible under normal circumstances with a trio of high-level trainers, but raiding with smaller-sized groups appears to be much easier with the addition of Party Power.)

Image: Niantic/The Pokémon Company

Pokémon GoParty Play now includes a brand new feature, called Party Challenges. After forming a party, the group will get a pop-up menu in-game that offers multiple challenges to tackle: spinning PokéStops, battling in raids, or catching Pokémon.

For the cosmetically inclined, Party Play will also unlock exclusive avatar items for trainers: Eevee-themed T-shirts, featuring a variety of “Eeveelutions.”

Party Play will be accessible from players’ Trainer profile page, where a new Party tab will be added. Players can then create their own party and receive a QR or numerical code to share with three Trainers nearby.

Niantic has confirmed that parties will range between two and four players. Everyone in the party must be at least level 15, or higher, to join. But players don’t need to be in-game friends to join a party, which will hopefully encourage players during Community Day events or larger get togethers, like Pokémon Go Fest, to group up and play together.

Image: Niantic/The Pokémon Company

The developer also confirmed that there’s no way to remotely join a party. The players must be roughly in the same area to get together. Expect that proximity range to be approximately the distance within which one can spin a PokéStop or gym, the developer said.

More information about Pokémon Go’s new Party Play feature, which rolls out globally on Oct. 17, on the game’s official website.