Pokemon Go Update Launches With 80+ New Creatures From Gold/Silver

Update: Niantic has now formally announced the update's release and suggested the 80-plus new Pokemon are available. It also provided more extensive notes regarding what the update consists of, as listed below:

• Over 80 additional Pokemon originally discovered in the Johto region can be caught.
• Gender-specific variations of select Pokemon can be caught.
• Added new encounter mechanics.
• Added Poke Ball and Berry selection carousels to the encounter screen.
• Added two new Berries.
• Added new avatar outfit and accessory options.
• Added new night-mode map and encounter music.
• Added bonus Candies for catching Evolved Pokemon.
• Implemented Apple Watch connection stability improvement.
• Various bug fixes.
• Minor text fixes.

The original story follows.

A new update for Pokemon Go is out now, bringing some small quality-of-life changes to the game, but not the new Generation 2 creatures (yet).

Chief among them, you can now easily access your different Poke Balls and berries right from the encounter screen. As pictured below, two new buttons have been added to the screen, saving you the trouble of opening the item list to access these commonly used things. There's also new music during encounters.

Gallery

Another small change is to the Evolve button when viewing a Pokemon. This now shows a silhouette of the creature you'll obtain if you do choose to evolve the one you have.

Update notes for the iOS version don't go into much further detail about what's new. A new night-mode map is now available, and various bugs and typos have been fixed. If you're connecting your phone to an Apple Watch, the connection should be more stable.

All of this is a precursor to the major addition coming very soon, which is new Pokemon from Gold and Silver. 80 new ones are on the way, including starters Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile. These are set to be available in-game before the end of the week, but it appears they haven't shown up alongside this new update.

Pokemon Go developer Niantic also recently announced that trading and player-versus-player battles are on the way soon.