'Pokémon Go' is branding Pokémon caught by cheaters

Pokémon Go players who use cheats to catch Pokémon may find that those Pokémon are marked as illegitimate in their inventory and behave oddly in combat, a Niantic representative said on Reddit Wednesday.

With the announcement of Raid Battles and the new battle features, we are staying true on our commitment to ensuring that Pokémon Go continues to be a fun and fair experience for all trainers. Starting today, Pokémon caught using third-party services that circumvent normal gameplay will appear marked with a slash in the inventory and may not behave as expected. We are humbled by the excitement for all the new features we announced yesterday. This is one small part of our continued commitment to maintaining the integrity of our community and delivering an amazing Pokémon Go experience.

This new anti-cheat measure comes less than a month after players discovered that Niantic was preventing rarer Pokémon from showing up for players using third-party software. Niantic didn't announce that specific anti-cheat measure, though it did confirm that cheaters could see their games impacted in negative ways.

The latest anti-cheat measure comes just a couple days after Niantic announced a large update to the game, including new cooperative raid bosses and a revamped gym system. It seems that Niantic wants to make the game as fair as possible ahead of its new content.