Pokémon fans from around the globe gather to catch Pokémon and meet Pikachu at Pokémon GO Fest Jersey City 2025, Saturday, June 7, 2025 in Jersey City, N.J. (Jason DeCrow/AP Content Services for Pokémon GO)

The first-ever remote trades are finally happening in Pokemon Go after some trainers were able to achieve forever friends together.

Although there was initially a problem reported with the feature, the issue has been resolved, and people can now trade Pokemon with others they may never meet in real life, which is a huge benefit for global Pokemon Go communities.

For years, particularly after the remote raid passes were introduced in April 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been sharing their friend codes in Discord servers or social media platforms to add friends from across the globe for events, such as raid hour, in which people can battle raid bosses and catch legendary Pokemon more frequently from 6 to 7 p.m. local time every Wednesday.

You could add people from different time zones to grind the game, effectively build your resources and catch shiny legendary Pokemon, which are highly sought after in lucky trades because they are the easiest way to get a shundo — a shiny Pokemon with perfect individual values.

On the other hand, if you didn’t have access to an active local community, you could host raids during your raid hour for other trainers around the world and build friendship points with them.

The Pokemon Go friendship system has five levels, with each level requiring people to interact with one another for a set number of days through things like raiding together or sending and opening each other’s gifts.

Once people become best friends, which requires 90 days of interaction, they unlock the potential to trigger lucky friends, guaranteeing their next trade together will be a lucky trade.

Before remote trading was introduced in December 2025 alongside the new fifth level of friendship — forever friends — the only way to trade Pokemon in the game was through a local trade, meaning you had to be standing within proximity of the other trainer to initiate the trade.

Because of that, some trainers have been lucky friends with dozens of people for years and are only now able to trade with each other remotely.

Most trainers won’t actually unlock remote trades until

March 11 because it takes an additional 90 days of interaction for people to go from best friends to forever friends. However, some were able to achieve forever friends early through the weekly challenge feature that was introduced in October 2025.

By completing a “challenge” with up to three friends in a group, trainers can earn an additional seven friendship points per week. The challenges aren’t challenging, but that’s a topic for another day.

Through strategizing with specific friends each week, some have been able to trigger forever friends early and have unlocked remote trading.

A trainer named

Tagman50 was one of the first to unlock the feature and uncover a glitch that has since been fixed. After completing a remote trade with his lucky friend, the Pokemon he received was not a lucky Pokemon.

I know the issue has been resolved because I witnessed a friend complete a lucky trade remotely with someone else on a livestream.

However, Pokemon Go’s developers have a history of taking a reactive approach to resolving issues rather than a proactive one, and I hope that changes one day because I’d like to think Tagman50’s issue could have been easily avoided if the mechanic was tested properly.

Trainers in New Zealand and Australia are often seen as the beta testers for the game because they experience more glitches with events and features than later time zones. But there are still situations when events are plagued with glitches by the time people play them here in Altoona.

For example, last year’s Ultra Unlock raid day event featuring Origin Forme Dialga and Palkia was advertised as having boosted shiny rates for both legendary Pokemon. However, the shiny boost was either bugged or nonexistent as the shiny versions for either Pokemon were very difficult to encounter.

To the credit of the game’s developers, they looked into the issue and decided to compensate everyone with a number of timed research tasks that guaranteed encounters with the shiny versions of either Pokemon, based on the number of raids a trainer did during the event.

After nearly 10 years of Pokemon Go, it’s disheartening when issues still arise, especially considering — as Australian Twitch streamer FleeceKing would put it — the game was developed by a “billion dollar company by the way.”

Regardless, I am excited to complete my first remote trade with a friend. The feature has been a long time coming and shows the game’s developers have their global community’s best interests at heart.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520 and mchurella@altoonamirror.com