Pokemon GO Might Add Raids in Future Updates

Dataminers have discovered lines of code in the Pokemon GO mobile game that hint at upcoming raids, where groups of players could take on powerful Pokemon or trainers.

Gaming dataminers discovered a new potential cooperative game feature coming to Pokemon GO. After a recent Niantic blog post mentioned upcoming "new cooperative social gameplay experiences," Pokemon GO dataminers searched through the code and discovered lines of code about "nearby raids" and gym updates. Although the gym updates will certainly be a welcome addition, it's the mention of raids that got many players all excited.

For those unfamiliar with massive multiplayer online (MMO) games, raids are large-scale events that require many player participants in order to succeed. When groups are able to complete raids, they are rewarded with the best loot a game has to offer. Bearing that in mind, it seems Niantic plans to introduce raids into Pokemon GO, which would allow players to work together to take down tough enemies. These will probably be powerful Pokemon or well-known gym trainers from Nintendo's Pokemon series.

It's worth noting that the original Pokemon GO announcement trailer featured raids, and showed massive group of players in New York City taking on Mewtwo, one of the most powerful Pokemon in the franchise's history. Of course, gamers would appreciate the chance to take on such an iconic Pokemon with their friends and strangers. Let's hope that means raids really are in the works for Pokemon GO, but it might also mean that the feature is still far off. If it's taken this long to add trading and battles after Niantic mentioned they were coming, simply by mentioning raid in the game's code could mean players shouldn't expect the game mode to be available for a while.

Pokemon GO is currently available on Android and iOS devices.