It has been a disappointing year for Pokémon GO fans with event issues and event cancellations. Very few new features have been added to Pokémon GO in 2017 after a hugely successful 2016 and now Niantic has announced they are working on a new game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite despite many core Pokémon franchise gameplay features such as PvP Battling and Trading still not in the game.

In July, CEO John Hanke of Niantic was interviewed by Andrew Webster of The Verge to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of Pokémon Go and it was revealed that development of Pokémon GO was already 6 months behind schedule. In September, Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara in an interview with Bloomberg Technology stated that Pokémon GO is only 10 percent complete. This has many fans of the game extremely concerned that with Niantic shifting development to a new game, it will affect the the development of Pokémon GO. Niantic has attempted to quell these concerns with a blog post stating that there are "amazing features in 2018".

Looking ahead

Trainers, Just like many of you, we're super excited about Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and are working hard with our partners at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and WB Games San Francisco’s development team to bring that to life. However, we–the Pokémon GO development team–want to say that we are 100% committed to creating an ever-changing and growing game that gets our players exploring, meeting each other, and deepening their connection to the Pokémon universe. We're actively expanding the Pokémon GO development team to build many more amazing features in 2018. Stay tuned for an update next week on upcoming improvements to certain features.

Our Ingress, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Pokémon GO development teams are all hiring. You can take a look at our postings and apply online here.

Thanks, The Pokémon GO development team

Source: https://nianticlabs.com/blog/devupdate111017/