Skip to main content

After nearly two years, ‘Pokémon Go’ finally adds a trading feature

Tim Gouw/Unsplash

Niantic and The Pokémon Company released Pokémon Go back in July 2016, but the game launched without a crucial feature: the ability to trade monsters. For the past two years, players have wondered when we’d be able to share our monsters with friends, and that time has finally arrived.

Starting this week, Pokémon Go trainers will be able to make use of a new “friends” feature, which gives them the ability to track their fellow trainers’ accomplishments, send them gifts, and trade them their own collection of Pokémon. Becoming friends with another player works similarly to doing so on the Nintendo Switch or 3DS — you must share your “trainer code” with another player, and once they accept your request, you’ll show up on each others’ friends lists.

Recommended Videos

The friends system is how you’ll trade with other players. Anyone over Trainer Level 10 — which is likely you if you’re still playing Pokémon Go — can trade with others on their friends lists. As Pokémon Go is designed for out-and-about interaction, you’ll have to be physically near your friend in order to trade.

You’ll earn a bonus candy prize when you trade Pokémon, as well, and it will increase depending on how far away the two monsters were caught. Just as with powering up your monsters, you’ll need Stardust, but this requirement will be reduced as you build up your “friendship level” with other players. Legendary and Shiny Pokémon — as well as those you haven’t found on your own yet — can still be traded, but only once per day through a “special trade.” These require more Stardust and can only be done with “great friends” or “best friends.”

If your friends aren’t close to you, you can still interact with them by sending gifts. These wrapped packages can be found at PokéStops and gyms by spinning the disc as you usually would, and you cannot open them on your own. Instead, you can send them to anyone on your friends list along with a postcard, and your friends can receive extra items or even Alolan Pokémon eggs.

Sending gifts will build up your friendship level with other trainers, as will participating in raids or gym battles. In addition to lowering the Stardust requirement for trading, battling with those who have a higher friendship level will give an attack stat bonus to your own Pokémon.

Pokémon Go will get even more features this November with the launch of Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Both Switch games will connect to Pokémon Go and your mobile roster can be sent to the newer games.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Pokémon Sleep is here and it features some surprising microtransactions
An illustration of a Snorlax and other Pokémon napping from the Pokémon Sleep trailer.

Pokémon Sleep is now available in the United States for both iOS and Android devices. While the sleep tracking app is free to download, it has some surprising monetization built into it thanks to a paid monthly plan and microtransactions.

First revealed in 2019, Pokémon Sleep is a cross between a sleep-tracking app and an idle game. When users leave their phone on their bed at night, it'll record their sleep quality and habits by sensing vibrations and using their phone's microphone. When they wake up, they'll help a professor "research" Pokémon that have gathered around a sleeping Snorlax overnight. It's a cute way to gamify a sleep-tracking app, adding a "catch 'em all" element to the mix.

Read more
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: shiny hunting guide
Shiny Azumarill.

It's already a major task to catch all the Pokémon in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, or any of the games for that matter, but GameFreak introduced another factor completionists will need to account for starting in Generation 2, that being shiny Pokémon. These are very rare forms of Pokémon that feature alternate colors of their regular, non-shiny forms. They never have any numerical or mechanical differences from their regular versions and are only differentiated based on their color and rarity.

Shiny hunting has been around since shiny Pokémon were introduced, but the methods and odds of encountering them always change from game to game. They are still present in Scarlet and Violet, but the open-world format has made hunting them slightly different. If you want to know how to get the best odds of finding these rare Pokémon, here's everything you need to know about shiny hunting.
Shiny hunting basics

Read more
Final Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer features Ganondorf, minecarts, and mechs
Zelda holds a tear-shaped object in her hand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's final trailer.

Nintendo has released the final prelaunch trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ahead of its release next month, and it gives us an awe-inspiring look at its story and impressive open world.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Official Trailer #3

Read more