After a lot of requests from Pokemon GO fans, Niantic finally heard them and agreed to keep the Gym and Pokéstop interaction distance/radius as 80 meters.
Niantic officially announced on Wednesday that it is bringing back the 80-meter interaction radius to Pokemon GO. And yes, Niantic is permanently increasing it this time, and 80 meters will be the new standard interaction distance in Pokemon GO.
What’s the back story?
The standard Gym and Pokéstop interaction radius in pre-covid time was 40 meters. As the pandemic hit the world, Niantic decided to extend the PokéStop and Gym interaction distance from 40m to 80m to ensure players continue playing the game at the comfort of their homes.
Later, the company reverted the interaction distance to 40 meters as Niantic wants people to connect to real places in the real world and visit places worth exploring. However, the players are safe and comfortable playing in increased radius especially considering the new Delta variant of COVID-19. So the fans were furious about Niantic’s decision.
The Reddit handle, r/SilphRoad, is the most popular Pokemon GO community out there. The players from SilphRoad wrote an open letter to Niantic asking them to keep the extended range feature. As the new Delta variant of COVID-19 slowly begins to spread, it’s not a good time to remove that feature that allowed players to keep up with the game from home.
And some prominent players used the hashtag #HearUsNiantic on Twitter to bring Niantic’s attention to the letter. Later, Niantic responded to the letter and voices from fans. They said they were overwhelmed with such a passionate player base. They said, “not every game has such a passionate, global player base,” and they’re ultimately happy and fortunate for that.
In conclusion
After all this, Niantic finally decided to make the 80-meter interaction radius permanent and standard in the game. What’s more, a Pokémon GO player wants at this moment?
Thank you to everyone who made your voices heard. We’ve heard you and understand that this has been a welcome benefit to many players. We’ll share more next week. (2/2)
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) August 25, 2021
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