Rather than leave your home to find a gym to start a raid in Pokémon Go, you will soon be able to do it from home with your friends. This and many more stay-at-home mechanic changes are coming to the game to make it easier for players to adhere to the home-bound quarantine everyone is experiencing to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Niantic founder John Hanke shared these details in a new blog post, detailing the current effects and what his company is doing to respect those changes.
“We are reaching out to extend our best wishes for your wellness at this time of unprecedented challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hanke wrote. “The increased physical and mental strain can have a lasting impact on people, and we’re here for you. But the world has changed, so what can we do?”
Hanke went on to discuss how Niantic has pushed for community-involvement, wanting everyone to get outside to exercise, to explore the world, and to have regular entertainment while staying connected to friends. However, due to the world being encouraged to stay home, Niantic wants to help everyone to do that, too.
It’s doing so by making it easier to track steps through Adventure Sync, making it easier for players to visit their favorite real-world places without having to physically be there, reimagining live events, and the biggest one is allowing friends to connect virtually and take on raids as a team without physically meeting up.
Before this blog post by Hanke, Niantic had already pushed forward with removing the walking requirement for players to enter into the Pokémon Go’s PvP Battle League. Now, all players have to do is hit the button, and they conduct all three of their allowed battles for the day without having to walk anywhere.
Right now, we only know that the company is aware of the current issue, that it wants to make it easier for players to continue to play the game, but it also doesn’t want to make stay-at-home life too complicated. We can expect to hear more about how Niantic will do this in the future.
Its likely players will only be able to do it by being friends with players, so make sure to share your friend code with others who play the game, and expand your connections so you can continue to play with everyone, even if you’re stuck at home.
