‘Pokémon Go’ developer has “no intention” of removing remote raiding

Niantic has confirmed that it has “no intention” of removing remote raids for standard tiers of Pokémon Go raiding, however certain Community Day raids will still require turning up in-person to complete.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Pokémon Go game director Michael Steranka shared that Niantic has “no intention right now of removing remote raiding for the regular tiers of raiding – one, three and five-star raids,” but noted “we haven’t been shy about the fact we’re looking at opportunities for players to get playing in-person again.”

“Our approach is generally going to be to introduce new functionality and features to promote [playing in-person], rather than retiring remote raiding, which we know players have grown to love over the past two years,” added Steranka.

Niantic has been trying to balance remote play functionality and in-person content since 2021, when players protested the company’s removal of several safety changes that were implemented during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

On that topic, Steranka explained that Niantic “did everything we could to meet players […] where they were forced to be because of the pandemic,” but argued that some of the changes strayed too far from the studio’s aim with Pokémon Go:

“Pokémon Go remains about exploring the world around you. I think unfortunately the pendum swung a little bit too far to having the complete Pokémon Go experience from the comfort of your couch. And that’s just not where we want to be as a product.”

Steranka added that the “core focus” of Pokémon Go will continue to be “leveraging technology to get people out in the real world” in the coming months, but clarified that the company “will be looking at ways to encourage players to explore, rather than continuing to diminish the experience anybody has at home”.

In other news, Sony has shared that classic PlayStation Plus games will be getting NTSC support.