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According to the Pokemon Go Hub, the features lets you choose which pokémon from your collection to be your buddy, and you’ll then reap a variety of benefits from it, including “unique” in-game rewards and experiences.

“Buddy pokémon will appear alongside your trainer avatar on your profile screen, adding helpful bonuses such as awarding candy for walking together,” explains developer Niantic. “You’ll also have the ability to change your buddy pokémon at any time.”

It looks like it will work in a very similar way to eggs, whereby players place an egg in an incubator and walk around with it to build up mileage and eventually hatch it. The Buddy system would mean catching several of the same creature in order to build up candies would no longer be necessary.

While Niantic is yet to confirm the feature, the Go Hub data miners say the code is complete, suggesting we could see the feature launched as part of the next patch.

The announcement comes not long after the developer introduced its appraisal feature, in which the in-game team leaders would offer tips on each Pokémon’s attack and defense abilities to help trainers determine which Pokémon to use in gym battles.