New Pokemon Go Update Will Bring Back Spark and Fix Tons of Bugs

Late last night, Pokemon Go announced a new update that should fix several annoying crash bugs, and also radically change how gyms work.

Before we get into the technical details, let’s focus on the most important part of the update: Spark’s return to the game. Earlier this month, we reported that Team Instinct’s leader had suddenly disappeared from the game, with Candela taking over his responsibilities of appraising Pokemon. Niantic acknowledged Spark’s disappearance earlier this week, and now Spark is returning to work in the next few days.

Scroll down to see what other changes are coming to Pokemon Go in the coming days:

Motivation Bug

When Pokemon Go first opened up its new gym system, players noticed that Pokemon with a CP of 3,000 or higher lost motivation at a rate significantly quicker than all other Pokemon. Players assumed that Pokemon Go was either trying to motivate players not to leave high level defenders in the game, or that there was a bug of some kind that caused the higher rate of motivation decay.

It turns out that Pokemon Go intended for ALL Pokemon to have that high rate of motivation decay. Moving forward, all gym defenders will lose CP at a rate of about 10% per hour, which means that they’ll need to be fed a lot more berries to stay in fighting shape. This change appears to have already gone into effect, so players should start noticing the higher motivation decay in gyms now. 

On the plus side, Pokemon Go reactivated its remote feeding feature earlier this week, so players can at least keep the gyms their Pokemon are stationed at in shape…as long as they have enough berries. 

Multiple Crash Bugs Fixed

Pokemon Go is also fixing multiple bugs that caused the game to crash for various reasons. Probably the bug that most players experienced in recent day is a bug that caused the game to freeze whenever all six of a player’s Pokemon fainted during a Raid. This might not have been much of a problem when Raids were easy to beat, but the addition of Legendary Pokemon has caused a lot of players to experience this bug firsthand in recent days. 

The new update will also fix a bug that causes Pokemon Go to freeze when a player uses potions too quickly, and fix several issues that cause the game to crash on iPhone 6 devices. 

Of course, these are only the updates that Pokemon Go is telling us about. Dataminers could find more secrets in the new update when it rolls out in the coming days. Stay tuned for more details!

More Pokemon: How to Get More Premier Balls in Pokemon Go’s Legendary Raids / Here’s What Articuno and Lugia Look Like in Pokemon Go / Pokemon Go Disables New Feature / Team Instinct’s Leader is Missing in Pokemon Go / Shiny Tapu Koko is Available Now for Pokemon Sun and Moon Players / Pokemon Go Announces Safari Zone Live Events / Pokemon Game Confirmed in Development for Nintendo Switch