"Pokémon GO" game developer Niantic has announced that Togepi and Pichu are now available for the game. In addition, players can have a Christmas Pikachu, but only for a limited time.
According to the game's official website, the studio behind the highly successful augmented reality game has confirmed the arrival of the next batch of pocket monsters. It was initially believed that all will be delivered in a single batch; however, this is not the case. The arrival of the Pokémon will be spread out over several months. For the first batch, it is Togepi, Pichu, and several more.
These new Pokémon are from the Johto Region that can be found in the "Pokémon Gold"and "Pokémon Silver" video games. The games introduced 100 new characters when it was released back in 2000.
The studio also mentioned that players will not be catching the new ones in the wild; rather, they can get them from hatching eggs. They should expect a need to do a lot of walking, from 2 km up to 10 km, to hatch the new set of characters.
Since it is the holiday season, Niantic also decided to spread some more cheer for "Pokémon GO" fans. From Dec.13 until 10 a.m. PST of Dec. 29, players will have a chance to capture the holiday-themed Pikachu, which will be wearing a Santa hat when seen in the wild. The game company is encouraging players to use the "Pokémon GO" AR camera to take pictures of the special character and share them to the community and tag it #HolidayPikachu. A short game trailer was also released together with the announcement.
Niantic has not specified any details about the additional Pokémon, so players will have to simply enjoy and make the most out what is being offered. Meanwhile, the development team previously announced that more players would experience Nearby Pokémon as they will be adding more locations to test out its new features.
"Pokémon GO" is free to download for iOS and Android devices.