I know people still play Pokémon Go. I’ll be queued up for a raid and get the occasional one other person to join me. I’ll be sitting in the office and someone on one of the floors below me will drop a lure module. But the amount of players partaking in this game is dwindling. Developers of the app Niantic Labs have been struggling to keep people interested, because after catching the same few Pokémon over and over again, it becomes more of a chore than an enjoyment.
In the last week, the developers of the once popular app have announced a slew of summer activities for players to take part in, hoping that it will reignite the spark of Pokémon Go back to the hype of when it was first released.
The first of these new features is 8 new Alolan forms will be available to the public. This includes the Alolan forms of Vulpix, Sandshrew, Meowth, and Grimer, all introduced in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. These highly anticipated alternate forms will only be available by hatching a 7 kilometer egg, and will not be able to obtain in the wild.
Niantic Labs also introduced the highly awaited “Friends” feature that allows you to buddy up with people you know or meet though the game, train Pokémon, and gift items. The catch? You have to be level 30 in order to use the feature, which means that even players like me, who have had the app since release, don’t even have access to this feature due to the ludicrous amount of experience points required to reach level 30. It debuted only to players of level 40, but is supposed to drop so that more players will eventually be able to experience it.
Two last bits of exciting info are that region-exclusive Solrock and Lunatone will be swapping places in celebration for the summer solstice, which occurred last night. Lunatone is now available to the western hemisphere, while Solrock can now appear in the eastern hemisphere. Finally, the raid boss Regice made its debut, the first of the Regi trio to be obtainable in game.
So are all these features enough to save the game? Personally, I say no. Each additional feature comes with some kind of caveat or restriction. If Niantic Labs wants to rope players back in, there needs to be some incentive for returning players. Granted, they’re making steps in the right directions, but the player base has dwindled down to the dedicated few, and even I’m starting to wear myself out.
