Pokemon Go Fest Suffers From Extreme Lags and Slowdown

Pokemon Go is experiencing major lags in gameplay due to Pokemon Go Fest. Today is the first day of Pokemon Go Fest, a two day global event meant to celebrate Pokemon Go and its still thriving playerbase. However, the influx of active players has caused major lags and slowdowns within the game, to the point where many players are experiencing lengthy freezes or slowdowns. The slow gameplay experience is reminiscent of the first Pokemon Go Fest, where thousands of players gathered together in Chicago, but were hampered by widespread cell network overloads. This time, the gameplay is affecting players around the globe, despite Niantic’s best efforts to clear up their server traffic.

The extreme lags have been caused by everything from opening the Friends list to tapping on a Pokemon on the overworld map to catch them, and have persisted since Pokemon Go Fest officially launched last night. Niantic’s Support Twitter account has provided fans with continuous updates, announcing temporary shutdowns of features to try to improve slow gameplay. But despite temporary shutdowns of the GO Battle League and other short term fixes, players continue to report issues on Twitter and elsewhere. You can keep an eye out for updates on any slowdowns by following Niantic’s official Support Twitter account.

UPDATE: Per Niantic’s Support account, these issues were corrected at approximately 4:30 PM ET.

One fix that we found helped with freezes in gameplay is to simply shutdown and restart the app. While you might miss out on catching a Pokemon, it beats out on waiting for minutes to see if your game will re-load properly.

The two day event features rotating “habitats” with different Pokemon and a series of Global Challenges that can be completed for bonuses. There’s also Special Research featuring the Mythical Pokemon Victini and the chance to encounter rare Pokemon that don’t usually appear in the wild. The even lasts through July 26th at 8 PM local time.