Despite Pokemon Go being released two and a half years ago, most of the game's advances and updates have been introduced in the last 12 months.

Pokemon Go took the world by storm during the summer of 2016 like no game that came before it and none that has come since. It felt as if everyone in the world was playing. The initial hype eventually died off, as was to be expected, but two and a half years later, Pokemon Go is still extremely popular.

In fact, 2018 has been a terrific year for the free to play game. That's because Niantic has been busy adding new features to keep players interested. Since this time last year, a litany of new things have been added to Pokemon Go, right up until the latest addition of PvP. Trainers can now battle each other, a feature players have been clamoring for since the game was released.

RELATED: EVERYTHING WE CURRENTLY KNOW ABOUT POKEMON GO TRAINER BATTLES

via asia.nikkei.com

Niantic has introduced a number of other ways you can interact with friends on Pokemon Go this year too. Not only can you now pit your Pokemon against someone else's but you can trade them too. Plus, you can add a fellow trainer as a friend and send each other gifts once a day. Pokemon Go needed these interaction elements and Niantic has supplied them.

When the game was first unveiled to the world, it only featured the original 151 Pokemon. Well, technically less than that due to the absence of legendary birds and Mewtwo and such but you get what we mean. That made sense but players quickly wanted more. However, it took a while for that second generation to arrive. Fast forward to 2018 and in the space of a year, we have been given gen 3 and a chunk of gen 4 soon after.

But wait, there's more! Niantic also unleashed a new weather feature this year. A handy little trick that means the type of weather outside dictates what Pokemon you are likely to run into. Also if it is pouring with rain and we don't want to risk damaging our phones, we can enable Adventure Sync and still contribute to hatching those eggs. Plus, last but not least, research tasks. Research Pokemon trainers perform in order to gain certain items and even a chance at catching a rare Pokemon. It has been a big year for Pokemon Go, and we look forward to an even bigger one in 2019.

NEXT: SPIDER-MAN AIR JORDANS BEING RELEASED JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS