Pokémon Go continues to roll out new content and timely events to coincide with things happening in the real world and the greater Pokémon universe. With New Pokémon Snap on the horizon (check out our final preview of that game here), Pokémon Go developer Niantic is encouraging players to whip out their in-game cameras in its hit mobile game.

Beginning April 29, Pokémon Go is adding themed research, avatar items, and Pokémon that appear in New Pokémon Snap in the wild. A new type of research task that features the Pokémon Go Snapshot feature will give players a chance to encounter Smeargle (you'll even have a shot at a Shiny encounter), while Pokémon who are known to appear in New Pokémon Snap's Lental region (like Venusaur, Dodrio, and Skarmory) will be more common in the Pokémon Go wild. New avatar items themed around cameras and photography will also appear in the Pokémon Go Style Shop.

Here's a picture of Metapod that The Pokémon Company has provided in support of this announcement:

As you likely remember, Pokémon Go launched in 2016 and immediately became a worldwide phenomenon, with massive groups of players roaming from destination to destination in hopes of encountering a rare Pokémon, sometimes leading to awkward or even dangerous encounters of a different kind in real life. While it's no longer the massive, unavoidable hit it was five years ago, it remains one of the top games in both the iOS App Store and Google Play. Niantic also continues to host Pokémon Go Fest every summer, attracting thousands of players from around the globe. Unfortunately, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, last year's event, like nearly every in-person event, was turned into a virtual celebration. No announcement for Pokémon Go Fest has been made for 2021. 

The New Pokémon Snap Celebration in Pokémon Go runs from April 29 to May 2. New Pokémon Snap comes to Switch on April 30.

Do you still play Pokémon Go? Are you looking forward to New Pokémon Snap? Let us know what you think about this event in the comments below!

Call of Duty: Warzone is notorious for its constant surge of cheaters. In addition to high-volume banwaves, the Call of Duty security and enforcement teams issue bans on a daily basis (yes, literally seven days a week) to take down repeat offenders or smaller, individual offenses. This past Monday marked the seventh massive banwave since Warzone launched over a year ago. And apparently, to date, a little under half a million cheaters (475,000 to be exact) have been hit with permabans!

To thwart cheaters, a multitude of countermeasures have been put into effect, including 2-factor authentication, increased support and resources directed to the security and enforcement teams, more large-scale banwaves in general, and more community-focused updates to keep players in the loop. 45,000 black market accounts (accounts that are farmed and sold to repeat offenders) have also been banned, which prevents cheaters from simply using alternate accounts. Similarly, hardware bans have been pushed out at a frequent rate. 

At the end of the most recent post on the Official Call of Duty Blog, the staff assured players that they’re working around the clock to mediate the constant cheating issues, “As the security and enforcement teams continue to tackle cheating through enforcement, prevention, research, and technology, we will continue to share constant updates on our progress. Again, there is no place for cheating. Delivering a fair and fun experience for all players is our top priority.”

A Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen banwave went out towards the end of last month in other cheat-centric news. The Bungie tweet that was posted alongside the Destiny 2 banwave evoked similar sentiments as the Call of Duty blog post, “The Game Security team has taken a swing with the banhammer. Keeping the playing field level is important to us. Play fair; we're watching." 

Have you run into an abundance of Call of Duty: Warzone or Destiny 2 cheaters? Go ahead and ring that bell of shame in the comment section below.