Pokémon Go players outraged by “nerfing” of female characters

A new Pokémon Go update changes the appearance of players’ avatars, leading to complaints about changing female character models.

A polarizing update for Pokémon Go is gradually rolling out around the world, changing some aspects of the graphics, including backgrounds and avatars. If you haven’t noticed a change, it’s likely that it hasn’t been enabled in your region yet.

A user on the Pokémon Go Reddit created a thread to complain about the avatar changes.

Changes to female avatars in Pokémon Go cause uproar

This includes the flattening of the female character model’s hips and waist, which some users have called a “female nerf.”

Give me my waist back! byu/Aettyr inpokemongo

“Only Niantic could release a visual update and make it look like a 2000s graphic,” one user wrote, while another said: “JUST HORRIBLE!! I still can’t get over how good my daughter looks now. I refuse to spend PokéCoins to try to look semi-decent.”

“How could they go back in time and make this look like it came out in 2005 lol. Oh man, there’s no definition and it’s so creepy,” one user lamented, while another joked: “They pinched your waist… get it??? Please tell me someone understands!”

“Maybe if we complain enough, they’ll change it,” one user said, “Reading people’s complaints (without pictures), I thought, ‘It can’t be that bad.’ I saw this post and I was like: “FLIPPIN FLOTSAM, WHAT IS THIS?!”

“Like, I already wasn’t a big fan of avatars, but this is worse. I wish they had the avatars in the style of the character models from Pokémon X and Y.”

This thread isn’t the only one complaining, as major Pokémon social media accounts are furious about the changes to Pokémon Go’s avatars. The general impression is that the models are much worse, on top of some paid content (hopefully temporarily) removed from the game in the process, including poses.

The Pokémon series has always had a bad flair when it comes to character customization options despite it being a highly requested feature by fans. The changes to Pokémon Go’s avatars are particularly unfortunate, since you’re meant to keep them around longer than you would a protagonist from a mainline game.