Exciting news for Pokemon Go fans, developers Niatic have announced that a new update is set to go live later this week which will bringing Trading and a Friends List to the game.

The update will be one of the game’s biggest yet with the two aforementioned features being anticipated by fans since Pokemon Go’s launch back in 2016.

The game has proved to be a huge success bringing a lot of new fans to the series, Nintendo aims to capitalize on the influx on casual fans with Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu and Pokemon Lets Go Eevee set to release later this year on the Nintendo Switch.

Making friends in Pokemon Go will give players special bonuses which include helpful items to use in game as well as exclusive Pokemon Eggs, one of which will be an exclusive Alolan egg form of a classic Pokemon that you’ll get when you see your friend a gift. Players will be able to add their friends using a unique six digit code, similar to Nintendo friend codes. Friends are locked to 200 friends when the update releases.

There’s also a friendship level meter with four tiers: Good Friend, Great Friend, Ultra Friend and Best Friend. The higher your level with your friend the better bonuses you get. The more you interact with a certain friend in game like battling gyms or doing raids together, the higher your level will get.

Moving onto trading, its there but not in the functionality that I was expecting. In the Pokemon Go update released later this week trading will be local only so no online trading right now, but further down the line certainly. You’ll also need to be at least level 10 to trade but that doesn’t take long to do. Friendship level also plays a hand when trading Pokemon as you need to pay Stardust with each trade, the higher your level the less Stardust is required for each trade, so you’ll definitely want to level up your Friendship level with friends who you intend to trade frequently with.

Special Trade is another feature where your Friendship level comes in really handy. You’ll need to be a Great Friend or above to initiate these with these allowing you to trade Legendaries, Shiny Pokemon and Pokemon not in your Pokedex like region exclusives. These have an even higher Stardust cost than normal trades but go down as your Friendship level increases.

So what do you think of this new Pokemon Go update? Looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments.