While the current Coronavirus pandemic has led many people to play a whole lot of video games, Pokémon GO is a bit unique. It requires you to explore the real world, walking around and interacting with public spaces. Obviously this doesn’t work very well when players are stuck inside their own homes to avoid getting or spreading the disease. However, Niantic has responded with a few initiatives to help isolated players, with a big announcement hitting this morning about remote raid passes and much more.
Remote raid passes had been rumored for a while, but Niantic has made the official announcement today. Coming soon to the Pokémon GO store, this item allows you to join any raid you can see on your nearby screen. That means you should be able to jump into any raid within a few miles of your current location. In the future, players using a remote raid pass will not deal as much damage as those physically at the Pokémon GO gym, but this has been disabled for the current Coronavirus situation. Everyone will do the same amount of damage as always. They will make their debut in a special 1 Pokécoin bundle and will be added to the shop at 100 coins, which will be raised later on.
Beyond this, there’s much more being done to Pokémon GO to allow for more social distancing. Every day players will receive a bonus Field Research task without even having to spin a Pokéstop. Your buddy Pokémon will also start delivering gifts for you to send to other players. A common complaint during the Coronavirus shut down has been that players can’t get to their local stops for these activities, so now they’ll be delivered right to your home.
Beyond this, the upcoming updates will make some long awaited fan requested changes. This includes powering up Pokémon by multiple levels at once and being able to activate multiple Lucky Eggs or Incense at a time to extend the effects.
