Pokémon Go players aren’t happy about the recent Shadow Lugia raid weekend. In a baffling design decision, Niantic made Shadow Lugia inaccessible to players using a Remote Raid pass, so it could only be completed with an in-person group.
“[It] is the stupidest thing they could do,” a player posted to Reddit on Oct. 31.”I went to 4 different raids in the span of 3 hours. Nobody came even in high traffic areas. It’s very frustrating to actively want to play this game and get locked out because nobody is willing to show up,” wrote the thread’s author. “Niantic is just shooting themselves in the foot at this point.”
Shadow Lugia was introduced to Pokémon Go for the first time in the Halloween event. It appeared in five-star Raids for two days, on Oct. 28 and 29, but could only be defeated by in-person parties to highlight the new Party Play feature. Now it’s gone, and players are understandably disappointed.
Pokémon Go fans flocked to Reddit to complain, and many agreed with the thread’s author. Players expressed frustration over the fact that certain Pokémon Go features are locked behind Party Play, so solo players cannot enjoy all the content from events.
In the comments, Redditors also lamented over Niantic’s questionable monetization decisions. They argued Remote Raid Passes didn’t bring that much money to the developer compared to “selling location data” and recruiting new players.
Party Play is part of Niantic’s new direction focusing on in-person play again, rather than long-distance features, following the lifting of COVID restrictions.
The changes to Remote Raid Passes in Spring 2023 sparked controversy, and Pokémon Go players are still frustrated, as more changes are coming that will likely make the problems worse. These changes are making Pokémon Go less accessible to players located in remote areas and those with limited mobility, which can only be a bad thing.
It’s also a blow to casual players like myself. I used to play with friends back when the game released in 2016, but I have less free time now, and it’s not as easy to arrange a time to meet your friends for Pokémon Go just so you can avoid missing out on key content.
Getting the rarest or most powerful Pokémon does require more effort, and I could get them if I put in the time. But some players simply can’t play with others in-person, meaning this exclusive content is simply out of reach. While Party Play did introduce new possibilities for certain players, it takes content away from the unlucky ones.
Niantic still has yet to respond to players’ concerns about the feature. It’s unclear whether the developer will add more content exclusive to Party Play in the future, as it only launched in October 2023, but time will tell.
Published: Nov 3, 2023 06:59 am