Back in October 2023, Party Play introduced an exciting way to play with friends in Pokémon Go, offering special rewards for completing challenges in a party. That said, players were never happy about its restrictive one-hour timer—and now, they have a reasonable request for Niantic to consider.
On March 17, a Redditor named ShadowMoses05 shared how the annoying “party will end soon” message bothered them during the erstwhile Primal Kyogre Raid event. They insisted that Niantic should at least extend Party Party timers during grindy events like these—as they did for the Sinnoh Tour in February 2024.
“It was really frustrating doing the raids today and getting the ‘party will end soon’ message and then asking everyone else to wait while you regroup,” they said while urging Niantic to make the change every one of us wants. The Primal Kyogre Raid event was a three-hour grind, so without the extension, players had to see their party session end every hour and rebuild it. Naturally, in a time-limited grindy event like that, the interruption isn’t fun to endure.
Having to rebuild a party when everyone wants to continue sounds like a frustrating experience. If extending it beyond the one-hour limit isn’t an option, players pointed out they could at least be allowed to manually extend it. “I wish there was a ‘we’re all still here, add 1 hour button’ instead of having to remake them all the time!” one player said. For some reason, however, Niantic has ignored community requests regarding Party Play.
During Pokémon Go’s Sinnoh Tour last month, the timer was extended to eight hours, offering players a ray of hope that Niantic may actually change its mind for good. But it was only for that particular event. Even then, the same extension could have been applied to the raid events to make it more convenient.
While the chances are low, all we can hope is for Niantic to see these reasonable requests one day and fix Party Play’s limitations for good.
