Pokemon Go Has New Poke-Tracking Technology

Niantic, a company that's found itself headlining more articles than most these days, recently removed one of its' more necessary features--the ability to track specific nearby Pokemon--and shut down third-party websites that offered the same, expanded service. Now, while Pokemon Tracking wasn't really a big deal if you live in a big, urban center, like a city, but not having any way to see where Pokemon spawn could be a huge problem if you live in a small town where spawns are few and far between, with some people calling the game unplayable without the feature.

Well, Niantic has heard you, peasants, and has rolled out not one, but two new, likely temporary measure for some users to beta-test that will hopefully act as a good substitute until proper Pokemon tracking can be re-implemented into the core product.

The first new system, called "Nearby", will tell you if there are Pokemon anywhere near your local Pokestops, and what type of Pokemon it will be. The second, called "Sightings," will tell you if there are Pokemon near your area, and tell you what it is, but won't direct you to its location, so you'll have to wander around and probably trespass in order to find the digital beast. While this is less specific, and shows off less pocket monsters than tracking did, it also doesn't show repeats, and refreshes more often, which is nice.

As of right now, only a few players have their hands on this, who will be beta-ing it for the rest of us, but I imagine it's only a matter of time before we see a larger rollout internationally. I think it's a good stepping stone for where we want Pokemon tracking to be, and a decent compromise from the arguably game-breaking Pokevision, but it's still got a long ways to go from here.

Here's hoping they keep it up.