Pokemon Go's New Reality Blending Feature Makes AR Much More Natural

Niantic has announced two new features that are coming soon to Pokemon Go, both of which will continue to enhance the game's AR capabilities. The first is dubbed "Reality Blending," and it will make Pokemon blend more naturally into the environment around you.

Utilizing the AR tech in certain modern smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Google Pixel 4, Reality Blending will allow the game to display Pokemon partially or fully behind objects. As you can see in the sample clip below, Reality Blending will make it so that Bulbasaur will be obscured when you move the camera behind a tree.

Niantic hasn't announced when Reality Blending will launch, but the studio says it will begin rolling out the feature to "a small number of random Trainers with certain Android devices, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung Galaxy S10, Google Pixel 3, and Google Pixel 4" for testing. Afterward, Niantic will expand Reality Blending to more devices.

The other new feature coming to Pokemon Go is called PokeStop Scan. Like the similar feature found in one of Niantic's other AR games, Ingress, PokeStop Scan is an opt-in feature that will allow players to upload videos of PokeStops and Gyms to help the studio develop 3D maps of those locations.

Niantic says it will roll out PokeStop Scan to level 40 players starting in early June. You can read more details about the upcoming features on the official Pokemon Go website.

In the meantime, the Legendary Pokemon Reshiram has made its debut in Pokemon Go, and it will be available in five-star Raids until June 16. Niantic has also announced the featured Pokemon for June and July's Community Day events: Weedle and Gastly.