"Rediscover GO?" Rediscover What Exactly?

Those of us who are still playing don't need to rediscover anything.

Note to Niantic: Pidgey is not a great selling point if you’re targeting lapsed players.

For a company consistently criticized for the effectiveness of its communications to its customers, that a recent promotional video Niantic released was chided for being sparing on details gives one the idea that, in this instance, the developer’s ambiguity was especially egregious.

In a fifteen-second featurette posted to its Twitter/X account, Niantic teased that “big updates” are coming to Pokémon GO soon, urging its audience to “get ready to #RediscoverGO.” The commercial of sorts includes various Pokémon well familiar to even casual players of PoGO and the main series games of the Pokémon franchise. So, uh, yeah—they’re all Pokémon from the Kanto Region, from the first generation of the games. To this effect, they’re not even rare spawns. Bellsprout. Gastly. Growlithe. Jigglypuff. Meowth. The entire Pidgey evolutionary line, for some reason. If the sight of these Pokémon alone is meant to excite the fanbase, I’m not sure how. At least throw an Eevee or Pikachu in there. I mean, it’s not rocket science.

So, yeah, that was it. Big updates are coming. What updates? Who knows. What does #RediscoverGO mean? In all likelihood, who cares. Amanda Kay Oaks, writing for The Escapist, hit the nail on the head with the title of her article about the trailer: “Pokémon GO Fans Underwhelmed by Ludicrously Cryptic Update.”

As Oaks underscores, there was no actual gameplay in the quarter-minute promo, so there’s nothing to suggest how these new features—whatever they may be—will manifest when live. Showing only Gen I Pokémon is also concerning from the perspective that there might be a renewed focus on the Kanto Region when there’s a dwindling but not insignificant number of Pokémon yet to be released and when Kanto Pokémon have been featured plenty of times before.

In all, as Oaks suggests, while some may be encouraged by the idea of “rediscovering” Pokémon GO as a return to the form of its early success, what Niantic has mostly done with this mystifyingly vague teaser is fuel speculation that new ho-hum additions to the game will be introduced, or worse, shifts that should outright induce dread. Recent in-game revisions to/testing on the augmented reality (AR) and avatar customization interfaces have, ahem, not gone over well. And then there’s the looming specter of a potential increase to Level 60 for Trainers and their Pokémon. I, having only gotten to Level 50 within the past year, could do without another upward movement of the level cap anytime soon and I don’t want to contemplate what new onerous tasks might be involved for leveling up alongside grinding for experience points yet again.

What Pokémon GO seems to be trying to do is exploit feelings of nostalgia for the game when it was at or near peak popularity. Otherwise, the makers merely wish to conjure up fond pre-PoGO memories for those who used to play the Pokémon games on Game Boy and Nintendo DS and inspire them to take the plunge into mobile gaming. Either way, it feels like a call to arms for lapsed Pokémon enthusiasts, especially those who downloaded Pokémon GO amid the craze upon launch and gave up on it. You know you want to come back. We’ve got big changes coming. Look, a Caterpie!

For those of us who never left, meanwhile, it’s hard to be enthusiastic about the “good old days” of PoGO when recently added features have been largely lackluster and when beloved features like Remote Raid Passes are being nerfed. In fairness, Pokémon GO continues to feature some stellar cosmetic designs and it occasionally does move in the right direction with quality-of-life (QOL) improvements. Notifications for players to Lucky Egg for bonus experience when hitting a milestone with in-game friends, a button to “ready up” while in a Raid lobby to start the Raid faster, and the option to Heal All or Revive All when multiple Pokémon lose health or faint are all welcome tweaks to the player experience.

It’s these achievements, though, which make Niantic’s inattention in other areas or deliberate meddling confounding. For example, I now have to tap an extra time when choosing a Sticker to send with a Gift to a friend. I’ve already tapped on the Sticker I want. Why must I tap again to confirm? Some people will certainly not spend the extra time to manage their Stickers, which already was a slight bother given just how many Stickers have been released since their inception. That’s disappointing because the artwork in PoGO is one of the continuously great things about the game and a lot of talent obviously went into making it. If fewer Trainers see and use these designs, it’s a genuine waste.

In other words, and, speaking more generally, the goodwill Niantic and Pokémon GO stand to gain from their successes and from the hard work of their dedicated employees gets undercut by their questionable decision-making and overall perceived tone deafness. Maybe it’s not players, but the people calling the shots who need to reflect and “rediscover” what has made GO such a fan favorite.