Pokemon Go update was indeed too good to be true, so Niantic has reversed it

UPDATE June 28: Niantic has changed its mind and declared that its recent Pokemon Go change that increased spawn rates was, in fact, unintentional.

A tweet from Niantic Support revealed the fact, and declared it would be reversing the change after all. “Some trainers may have experienced an increase to the current interaction radius,” it read. “This was the unintended effect of a bug fix intended to improve the Pokémon encounter experience when your device is experiencing GPS drift.”

However, there is some hope for those who preferred the change. “While we’re reverting this change, we will take your feedback into consideration as we look to optimize the Pokemon encounter experience in the future.” We’ll keep the original story up for posterity, but alas, for now it seems fans will have put up with the smaller radius for the foreseeable future.

ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS: It looks like the latest update to Pokémon Go has quietly added an improvement to the game that fans have been clamouring for, although no explanation has been given as to why it’s been made.

As spotted by Pokémon Go fan account Leek Duck, the 0.275 update appears to double the range at which you can see Pokémon on the map, meaning you can now plan routes towards catching certain monsters easier without having to double back on your intended route. As an interesting side effect, however, it means that it lessens the need for players to use incense to encourage more Pokemon to spawn while the player is stationary.

The change, Leek Duck claims, is entirely intentional despite the lack of reason given, and judging on some of the responses to the tweet, has been very welcomed indeed by the community. “An actual very welcome addition to the game!” says Hylianstagram, and PoGo Joel echoes that sentiment, saying “Love this update great QOL improvement.”

There are some who remain sceptical, however, that this update will stick given the state of recent updates to the hit mobile game made by Niantic over the past few months. Back in April of this year, Niantic announced it would be limiting the number of Remote Raids players would be able to participate in to just five per day, and increasing the prices of Remote Raid Passes in an effort to ‘rebalance the game and ensure it’s enjoyed by Trainers for years to come’.

However, the changes did not sit well with the community, who very loudly voiced their displeasure online across the game’s various outlets and subreddits. The game’s director, Michael Steranka, would later say that players did have many ‘valid concerns’ about the changes in a tweet about a month later, he did reveal that sadly some members of the community had subjected some people on the Pokémon Go development team including Steranka himself to personal abuse.

Speaking to Eurogamer on the controversial changes, however, Steranka said “Yes, the response and the negative sentiment I would say we’ve received on that is something we expected, but it’s something we made a decision that we’d have to grit our teeth and get past for the sake of the long term health of the game.”

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