Pokemon Go Players Disheartened After Niantic Reverts Extended Range “Bug”

Pokemon Go fans are unhappy with Niantic’s recent announcement surrounding the extended range. Earlier today, it was shared by the Niantic Support Twitter page that the interaction radius was much larger than they intended it to be. This was an unintended effect of a bug fix to improve Pokemon encounter when players experienced GPS Drift. They have removed the bug, to everyone’s dismay.

Shortly after making the announcement, many took to the comments section of the Twitter Post to share their dismay that Niantic would remove this helpful feature from Pokemon Go, and mobile game that desperately needs more positive community stories.

Niantic Further Reduces Pokemon Go Player Interaction Range

The Niantic Support Twitter page shared these details, and that they have already moved forward with removing the bug. However, the account did note that the team will be taking player feedback into consideration how they look to optimize the game further, potentially hinting that they might be cooking up something in the future to increase interaction range, but this is doubtful.

Some Trainers may have experienced an increase to the current interaction radius. This was the unintended effect of a bug fix intended to improve the Pokémon encounter experience when your device is experiencing GPS drift. While we’re reverting this change, we will take your…

— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) June 27, 2023

Many took to the comments of this Tweet, sharing their disappointment with this decision. The PvPoke Twitter account shared that the community needs to improve how the game works, saying, “Weren’t members of the partner program told otherwise? Communication needs to improve about how the game is intended to work.

Another prominent voice in the comments was Joe Merrick, the creator behind the Serebii Pokemon website. Merrick commented, “Probably should have seen how the community was thrilled with this for playability and accessibility reasons and never admitted it as a bug and just taken the win.”

The comments are full of the Pokemon Go community being baffled by this shared bug. It feels odd for a game developer to come forward, admit something was wrong that benefitted everyone and was widely regarded as a qualify-of-life improvement, only to remove it and not offer anything as an alternative or a middle ground.

Given Niantic’s history with handling Pokemon Go over the past few years, such as the remote raid pass changes, and shiny odd limitations, this behavior should not, unfortunately, surprise longtime players. It’s another example of Niantic wanting their mobile game to work in a specific way and not making it a flexible experience for more players to get involved.

We’re hoping that Niantic comes forward with a middle ground compromise for the Pokemon Go community. For now, Niantic has removed another positive reason for players to continue playing the game, which might impact their upcoming Pokemon Go Fest 2023 sales, and community involvement.