A few days ago, Pokémon Go players reported an odd occurrence in the game’s overworld when they started seeing wild Pokémon spawn a bit farther away than usual. Initially, everyone thought it was just a bug, but it appears Niantic has pushed a surprising quality-of-life improvement live with no plans to revert it.
As part of the 0.275.0 update that has been rolling out to most devices over the last several days, the spawn radius around player avatars has doubled, from 40 meters to 80 meters.
This is reminiscent of the PokéStop interactivity radius getting a boost from 40m to 80m during the COVID pandemic. Niantic did revert this back to normal for a brief period, before reversing that decision following community backlash.
It is unclear why the devs pushed this significant change live without an announcement, but multiple sources have seemingly confirmed this is a permanent addition.
Pokémon Go content creator Poké Daxi mentioned on Twitter on June 26 that one of Niantic’s representatives had confirmed this spawn radius increase is a permanent feature rather than a timed bonus or bug. LeekDuck, one of the community’s biggest information event and update resources, also claims this is the case.
While some players are joking about how Niantic did this by accident or will eventually reverse the extension, most of the community is thrilled. Disabled players and trainers who tend to casually play from home are especially happy, as they now get more Pokémon spawns than before without needing to change their playing habits.
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This also has the added benefit of giving even some of the more pessimistic players a positive feature to talk about after the Niantic did some major damage to its community with negative Remote Raid changes earlier this year.
“This definitely helps my attitude since the remote nerfs,” Redditor gregcresci said. “I literally don’t raid anymore, I’ve accepted I won’t be catching shiny Legendary Pokémon anymore which is fine, no one but myself really cares anyway. This update makes how I do play a bit more enjoyable.”
More additional quality-of-life improvements may be added soon too, along with much-needed bug fixes ahead of Pokémon Go Fest 2023 in August. Who knows, maybe Niantic will surprise players again for the event next month.
Update on June 27 at 1:48pm CT: Niantic did surprise players, but not in a good way, with the developer’s official support account announcing that this spawn interaction boost was actually an “unintended” effect caused by a bug fix.
Pokémon Go players will see the interaction radius reduced back to 40m, though Niantic notes it will be taking feedback as it continues “to optimize the Pokémon encounter experience in the future.”
Most of the creators who shared that they had heard from Niantic representatives about this surprising quality-of-life feature being permanent have now deleted their posts, but several have also shared how disappointed they are. Niantic is now reportedly telling those people that the interaction boost was a mistake.
Now the community, which was largely praising the developers for this positive change, is back to bashing the decision-making that has led to many players quitting Pokémon Go over the last six months.
