In an ongoing effort to get people in the physical world and create communities while playing Pokémon Go, developer Niantic is introducing Party Play. This new multiplayer feature rewards groups of people playing together in close proximity.
Party Play offers gameplay bonuses, additional challenges, and the ability to see each others’ avatars in-game on the map.
The best incentive includes the Party Power raid bonus, which doubles the damage of Charged Attacks in Raids and other PvE battles.
Niantic suggested that the proximity would be roughly equivalent to the radius of a PokéStop. Go farther away than this and you will receive a warning that the Party Play bonus will disappear.
Party Play launches on October 17, which includes a raid weekend featuring Shadow Lugia, so you can attempt to catch this legendary mon with your friends.
The feature is set to evolve over time. Senior producer Tim Nguyen said that the developer had something else special planned for this season’s unannounced finale event.
When Party Play launches, a new tab will show up in the player menu to let you start a party using a QR code you pass around. This allows you to party up with existing friends or new people you may run into at Go Fest or a Community Day event.
Parties are groups of as little as 2 and as many as players. The group leader will choose from a selection of Party Challenges, such as giving the group the shared goal to “Catch 50 Pokémon” and receive unique rewards.
Other features include the ability to immediately invite your group members to a raid that someone enters. Finally, exclusive avatar rewards to wear.
Pokémon GO is an augmented reality (AR) game developed by Niantic and released worldwide in 2016 for iOS and Android mobile devices.