Niantic Labs, the developer of the game "Pokémon Go," has announced the arrival of 23 new Pokémon to the game. These new Generation 3 Pokémon came from the "Hoenn region" (specifically from "Pokémon Ruby" and "Pokémon Sapphire").

Accompanying the announcement is a photo (see below) that shows the following Pokémon — Camerupt, Aron, Cacnea, Flygon, Aggron, Solrock, Lunatone, Trapinch and Whismur. The image show only nine new Pokémon, but in the list reported by Polygon, six more Pokémon bring the number of new additions to 15. Included in the six are Loudred, Exploud, Lairon, Numel, Vibrava and Cacturne.

Forbes also released a list containing eight more Pokémon that would bring the additional Pokémon to a total of 23. The news outlet mentioned Nosepass, Torkoal, Baltoy, Claydol, Lileep, Cradily, Anorith and Armaldo.

Niantic has been slowly releasing the Generation 3 Pokémon in the game. During "Pokémon Go's" Halloween event, five ghost-type Pokémon were added. In December 50 Hoenn native Pokémon were introduced to the game and on Christmas, 20 water-type Pokémon came out. Hoenn Legendary Pokémon Groudon and Kyogre also joined the game in mid-December and this month, respectively.

According to CinemaBlend, the possible reason for the gradual additions of new Pokémon in the game is to address "Pokémon Go's" fans' fear that the new game Niantic is developing a Harry Potter augmented reality (AR game) would take the developer's time off of "Pokémon Go." Updating the game by adding new Pokémon every now and then would ensure fans that Niantic will not abandon the game.

As for the staggered release of Generation 3 Pokémon, according to Forbes, it may be a response and an action to the criticism that Niantic received following the sudden release of all Generation 2 Pokémon last year. Many complained that Niantic either does not update anything in the game or dumps new content all at once.