Pokémon Go is getting a major overhaul, with updates to visuals, maps and avatars

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Did you play Pokémon Go back in the day, but dropped off? Developer Niantic is making a play to win you back with its Rediscover updates.

Four significant upgrades are due in the coming weeks, the first landing on April 17.

This is the Rediscover Yourself update, which opens up new ways to change your avatar, so it can better reflect your style. Or at least make your in-game character appear less generic.

The Pokémon Go YouTube account has released a trailer that touches on all the updates. Have a watch:

More substantial changes are coming to Pokémon Go on April 22.

The Rediscover Your World update might have the biggest effect on how Pokémon Go looks. It claims to refresh the visuals in a “fun and ecologically accurate way”.

The suggestion appears to be if you’re on a beach or in a forest, you’ll see a beach or forest in the game too.

It’s not yet clear how many of these “biomes” will feature, but the site does at least mention “lush forests to bustling cities, tropical beaches to rugged mountains”.

Rediscover Kanto also arrives on April 22. This lets you “find Pokémon first discovered in Kanto”, according to the Pokémon Go website. This was the starter location for the Pokémon games, and the teaser image suggests you can expect some golden oldies to proliferate in-game, including Bulbasaur, Vileplume and Butterfree.

The last and lightest of the Pokémon Go updates is dubbed Rediscover Your Reality, and comes to the game on May 7. This is a new version of the Go Snapshot that has been part of Pokémon GO since 2019.

It lets you add AR Pokémon to your own photos, and this area of tech has improved hugely since 2019 so we hope to see a major upgrade. If you end up in Australia, you may even get this one early. “Certain Trainers in Australia may begin to see the update within the coming weeks,” says the Pokemon Go website.

Pokémon Go was released in 2016 but reached its peak during the pandemic thanks to the 2020 lockdowns, according to revenue estimates published by Statista. While it has seen a natural decline since then, Pokémon Go currently still sits within the top 10 game charts for revenue in both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

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