Pokémon Go players are cheating in battles with a dangerous Discord bot

Pokémon Go offers a unique style of battling for the Pokémon franchise, but there is currently a Discord bot that is threatening the game with how easily it allows players to cheat. 

Over the last several days, Pokémon Go players and content creators have been signal-boosting warnings about a gameplay exploit that uses a Discord bot to scrape the game’s code during battles. That interaction then lets the bot share a full team sheet, giving that player full knowledge of everything from the Pokémon their opponent selected, their CP, and movesets within seconds.

It is not something that is widely accessible, largely because it requires a specific type of phone manipulation to make the bot function properly, but it is still out there and could be used for worse things the longer this exploit remains active. 

Because Pokémon battles rely so heavily on team composition and playing around a lack of information—even in Pokémon Go—this instantly gives the player using the bot an unfair advantage with full knowledge of every option on their opponent’s team. As of now it also appears that this is a completely untraceable exploit that you won’t notice being used when battling privately or in the Go Battle League. 

“That my friends is a wrap. That is blatant cheating and a blatant exploit,” YouTuber ZyoniK said. “We need to amplify this out so Niantic can address it. I don’t know what they’re going to be able to do, but the fact bots can have access to the code and read the teams from your opponent is just bad. Nothing good comes from this.”

Though there has not been a public statement yet, Niantic is aware of the issue and likely hasn’t said anything because the developers are working to isolate and prevent the exploit from getting more attention and potential usage. Pokémon Go Hub confirmed this was the case, saying Niantic asked them to take down an article talking about the exploit and “a fix was already being worked on.”

Unfortunately, there are people in the community sharing ways to access this exploit even though the original server where the bot was used has allegedly been shut down according to YouTuber Poké AK who originally broke the news—though even he doesn’t buy that. 

“As far as I know, the [exploit usage] is bigger than ever,” Poké AK said. “I don’t care if they said they shut it down and it’s gone for good. In my head, it’s bigger than ever and it needs to just be eliminated immediately.”

Now it has turned into a race against time to see if Niantic can find a way to fix and prevent things like this from happening in Pokémon Goor if the exploit spreads to the point where it actually begins to impact how many people are willing to open up the Go Battle League.