Catch ’Em All From Your Couch
Developer Niantic has been tweaking the formula to Pokemon Go for the past several weeks now, in order to make the game more user-friendly amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. In a recent blog post, they’ve unveiled the plans for the upcoming changes to raids, in order to encourage social distancing.
Written today, Niantic’s blogpost highlighted several initiatives moving forward:
“We created Niantic with a mission to help people get outside, exercise, and explore the world, with the ultimate goal of helping people connect with others. Today we support a global community of hundreds of millions of people who look to our games for regular entertainment and an opportunity to get outside and connect with friends.
We are adding to our product roadmap so we can enable more ways to play inside and around the home in the coming days and weeks, when the world needs it most.
While it’s impossible to predict when and how the situation with COVID-19 will evolve globally, we’re going to make the following changes to our games and live events:
- Exercise: you can track your steps indoor with Adventure Sync so activities like cleaning your house and running on a treadmill count toward game achievements. We’re going to make improvements to Adventure Sync so it works even better with indoor movement and activities.
- Social: we’re enhancing our in-game virtual social features to enable players to stay in touch when they can’t meet in real life. You’ll soon be able to team up with friends and take on Raid Battles together in Pokémon GO from the comfort of home.
- Explore: we’re also looking into how we can help players virtually visit and share memories about their favorite real-world places, until they can once again visit them in person.
- Live Events: we’re re-imagining what it means to participate in a Niantic live event this summer, and putting our creative energy towards bringing the excitement directly to your home. That means we’re working on an entirely new way to enjoy Pokémon GO Fest. More details coming soon!”
It’ll be interesting to see how many people decide to check out the new features of the game during this time of isolation. What are your thoughts on the changes coming to Pokemon Go? Are you excited to get into some raids from the comfort of your couch? Let us know in the comments section below.