For nearly two years, Niantic has actively made Remote Raids worse in Pokemon Go. In an attempt to get users playing the game outdoors, the company has implemented several restrictions on the feature, including a daily limit, and a much higher cost for tickets. Those changes don’t seem to be going anywhere, but Niantic has added a new quality of life improvement to Remote Raids with very little fanfare, and it’s actually a pretty big deal. In a major change, Raid attendance is now being shared through the player’s friend list, allowing friends to join Raids remotely without being sent an invite.
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Prior to this change, players were restricted to sending five invites to friends, who could then use a Remote Raid pass to jump in (local players could join without restriction). Picking five players to join you can often cause headaches if there’s no earlier planning; you don’t know who is going to be able to jump in, and sometimes you realize after the fact that you should have sent an invite to someone else instead. Following this new change, players will be able to see if their friends are in a Raid and hop in without being sent an invitation. A Remote Raid pass will still be required, but this should open things up in a big way, potentially making it a lot easier to find enough players.
The friend list in Pokemon Go allows players to rearrange it based on things like friendship level and whether or not they can receive a gift. Following this change, there’s now an option to group friends by “At A Raid,” which lists the number in parenthesis. That number shows how many friends are currently in Raids. It should be noted that these are not restricted to Raids that can be attended remotely; it will also list friends that are in Raids you can’t join without being there in person, such as Shadow Raids. Players will still have to keep an eye on their friend lists in order to see Raids they can attend, as they won’t receive push notifications like they do when they get an actual invite.
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Niantic has said nothing about this change to Pokemon Go on the game’s official website or social channels. It’s not clear why that is, but it’s great to see the company improving on the Remote Raid feature like this. It might not be as nice as a price drop for Remote Passes, or a lifting of the daily limit, but it’s a great change that’s going to make the game better. After nearly two years of frustration about the Remote Raid feature being nerfed, it feels like the community has a change it can actually be happy about.
How do you feel about this change to Pokemon Go? Do you think this will make Remote Raids easier to pull off? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atย @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!
