Pokémon Go’s new Party Play feature lets players team up for group challenges, easier raids

polygon.com:

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has always pitched its mobile Pokémon game as a social experience. But when you’re actually playing it, it’s just your lonely trainer on-screen, walking the virtual world of Pokémon Go and catching ’em all.

That’s changing with a new feature called Party Play, a “fully shared in-game experience” which will let players team up in groups to walk together, catch Pokémon together, and battle in raids together, all while showing up on every party member’s screen. The option to raid as a party will probably excite Pokémon Go players the most, because raiding in a party will give your team Party Power, a new damage multiplier that builds up as you battle raid bosses.

Party Power will double the damage of Charged Attacks in raids and charges with every Fast Attack that players in a party perform. More party members means your Party Power charges faster, Niantic says in a blog post detailing Party Play. In a gameplay demonstration of Party Play shown to media, Pokémon Go developers showed a party of three players taking down a Mega Gardevoir with relative ease. (That’s certainly possible under normal circumstances with a trio of high-level trainers, but raiding with smaller-sized groups appears to be much easier with the addition of Party Power.)

Pokémon Go Party Play will also extend to a new feature called Party Challenges. After forming a party, the group will get a pop-up menu in-game that offers multiple challenges to tackle: spinning PokéStops, battling in raids, or catching Pokémon.

For the cosmetically inclined, Party Play will also unlock exclusive avatar items for trainers: Eevee-themed T-shirts, featuring a variety of “Eeveelutions.”

Party Play will be accessible from players’ Trainer