Pokemon Go devs have been considering increasing the level up cap for quite some time. The news has also been revolving in the community but nothing was official till now. In an interview video by Matthew Slemon, Senior Project Manager for Pokemon Go at Niantic, was a map of what can be expected to come in the future updates of Pokemon Go. The interview also highlighted Mega Evolution and how difficult it would be to reach Level 50.
Pokemon Go Level 50 Conundrum
Developers at Niantic had to cross a big hurdle to put any substance while increasing the level cap. The argument here is that people who have already reached the level 40 requirement would just hit level 50 in no time. Matthew indicates that to reach Level 41 will require a considerable amount of time & effort. He also hinted at factored levelling, meaning it will be based on multiple metrics rather than just a simple grind.
Educated guess time!
We did a little manual number crunching with the information we had available in the current APK, and think we may have figured out some missing values from the Awards Levels we previously reported on.@OrangeHeart2018
Hi-Res: https://t.co/PUxMUUGTtn pic.twitter.com/3j0nKe67jO
— PokeMiners (@poke_miners) April 16, 2020
This basically means that a set of requirements will be laid down to level up beyond 40. If we speculate here, we can draw educated guesses. As quoted by Matthew, They want the next levels to be skill based and the easiest way to achieve that would be adding skill-based factors. The requirements could look something like:
Level 41 requirement
- 20,000,000 experience
- N number of Pokemon’s Caught
- At least, N number of Excellent Throws
- Have 40 different Pokemon species
- Win 100 Raid Battles
Mega Evolutions
The theory that you will have to catch Mega Evolved Pokemons in raids or research tasks has been debunked. But Matthew clearly states that Mega Evolving your own Pokemons will be possible. It actually a relief my shiny Gengar can be Mega Evolved! Phew!
The Devs seem pumped to introduce us to a Pokemon Go with mega evolutions and that will be a crazy sight, the Raid battles would get very weird too.
Pokemon Go Roadmap 2020
The video interview is long but there is no clear train where Matthew stops and elucidates in detail. Besides telling us about mega evolutions and increased skill cap, he adds on that Niantic has big plans for Pokemon Go this year.
There will be “new features, new Pokemon, and new Events.” But we already know that. The devs seem excited to announce details about the future but Niantic might be holding them back and for good reason. For now we can expect some new mythical Pokemon arriving and plenty more yet to be shared.
Vague answers won’t suffice for long time gym trainers! Matthew says that upcoming changes will be able to keep existing features relevant and fun as well as adding new things. Maybe he doesn’t know the propensity of trainers to take down the next gym or find a worthy PvP opponent. Whatever the case maybe, Niantic is keeping Pokemon Go relevant and cool.
