Pokemon GO New Update Now Live, Full Patch Notes

There’s a new update for Pokemon GO up today. It’s version 0.61.0 for Android and 1.31.0 on iOS. The biggest change it introduces is language support for Traditional Chinese. It also features the usual “various bug fixes” and “minor text fixes”.

Niantic has updated Pokemon GO once again. The new version of the app doesn’t implement any new gameplay elements. It updates the Pokemon collection screen scroll bar and includes the usua; bug and text fixes. However, it does have one very important aspect. The app now includes Traditional Chinese language support. This is interesting for reasons outside of the app.

We’ve written before about the Pokemon GO ban in China. To bring you up to speed, the Chinese state censor has banned Pokemon GO because it’s deemed unsafe. The reasons cited were traffic accidents and injuries caused by and to unwary trainers. However, many suspect that the reason behind it might be “geographical information security”. In other words, China isn’t too happy about the possibility of satellites sniping Chinese trainers.

I understand that a lot of Chinese expatriates will benefit a lot from the Traditional Chinese language support. However, I hope that this new update signals that the censors might be easing their stance on Pokemon GO. I know this is probably not the case, but it’d be nice if that were to happen.

Here are the full patch notes of the update.

• Added Traditional Chinese language support.
• Updated the Pokémon collection screen scroll bar.
• Various bug fixes.
• Minor text fixes.

Now, all that’s left is for the dataminers to start diving into the code of the update and see what Niantic has hidden in there. That’s what “minor text fixes” usually stands for. Will we get some hints of an Easter event, perhaps?