When you’re playing the AR mobile game Pokémon GO, it’s certainly more fun if you can sometimes interact with friends. But some people are just not social enough to ask people they meet to become their friends in the app. Or it could be that Pokémon GO players live in remote areas without many other gamers around. So how to find Pokémon GO users from around the world online? Please read our guide on how this can be done in a few simple steps.
What can you do with friends in Pokémon GO?
True, there are not many aspects of Pokémon GO that involve friends. When you collect Pokémon, your friends are no part of that. The league fights for PvP rely on match-making and don’t connect you to friends either. However, what friends are good for is to send each other gifts every day and let them send you a gift in return.
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Once you open the gift, you’ll receive a few random items and maybe some stardust as well. As you send each other gifts, your relationship rank increases and can grant you some perks for the game, such as better chances if you participate in raids together.
What are the benefits of finding friends for Pokémon GO online?
So that’s all good and understood. But why would anyone need to go find Pokémon GO friends online? Well, it comes back to the fact that some might need in-game friends and don’t know anyone near them who plays the game. If you want to progress some quests in Pokémon GO, some tasks are getting new friends or sending each other gifts simply requiring (new) friends.
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If you can’t find friends in your area or even on social media, it’s hard to continue those quests. The other thing that Pokémon GO friends are good for is that some gifts that you receive could contain Pokémon eggs that would hatch into rare Pokémon after you’ve walked a certain amount of steps. Some might also claim that Pokémon eggs from further away have a higher chance to contain very rare Pokémon.
How to find friends for Pokémon GO online?
Of course, one way is to try your luck on social media and search for people who publicly post their friend codes, or you try posting your own, hoping someone would eventually see it and add you. The chances for that are slim nowadays, however.
I think the best way of finding friends for Pokémon GO online is by using certain Pokémon GO friend portals. Why is that? There are several advantages to using such. For instance, you’ll be able to use filter functions and drill down on values such as location, gender, or teams. You will also see only the most recent postings on the top, and by adding a friend code from someone who just posted a few minutes ago, you’ll have much higher chances of being accepted by them right away, as they are likely still playing as you add them.
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Other benefits are that you can directly see their username, gender, team, and location info in case this would eventually aid your decision-making on what kind of friends you are looking for in Pokémon GO. You’ll see the code next to the posting that you have to copy and paste into the game. Still, if you want to do that much quicker, I suggest you use a second device, such as a laptop, to open the portal and simply scan the Pokémon GO friend QR code into the app—no more copy-pasting or entering random strings for a numeric friend code.
Here’s how you add new friends with numeric or QR code
- You open up a friend portal like Pokémon GO Friend Codes.
- Add any filter to the view as you need them, or just use the default selection.
- Choose a user that might make for a good friend.
- Open Pokémon GO on your smartphone.
- Click on your avatar (lower-left corner).
- Tap on the “Friends” tab on the top.
- Tap on the “Add” icon.
- Copy their friend code or use your smartphone to scan the QR code.
- You’ll get a notification that you requested to be their friend.
- Wait a bit, and with a bit of luck, they’ll quickly confirm you as a friend.
- Return to your friend list and check for new friends.
I’m sure there are other Pokémon GO friend portals as well out there, but this one worked fine for me. I also wanted to share a quick note to all parents out there reading this. Since Pokémon GO has no way for users to interact with each other, like chat or communicate in other ways, there should be no danger or risk to having your kids use a tool that helps them to buddy up with online strangers from all over the world. If you want to understand Pokémon GO better, you can also try it out for yourself and see how the friend system works. The game is free, after all.
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I hope you found this useful, and just in case you’re still struggling to find the right option in the game to add friends, I have also attached a helpful tutorial video from the Games with Will channel on YouTube below. Just imagine you scan it from your computer screen rather than from someone else’s Pokémon GO app for this particular use case.
YouTube: Pokémon GO – How to add friends with QR code
Photo credit: The feature image is symbolic and was used due to the lack of available press media for Pokémon GO. The key art is based on the game Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl and is owned by Nintendo. The screenshot in the body of the article is owned by the operator of the referenced website.
