Pokémon Go’s Gigantamax Battles are going to get “slightly” easier after player complaints

Players aren't happy with Gigantamax Battles, so Niantic is tweaking the formula

Niantic

Pokémon Go recently rolled out Gigantamax battles to players in all regions, with the super tough, 40-player raids launching last weekend with Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur up for grabs. Unfortunately for developer Niantic, the reception has been pretty negative across the board, with players complaining of the difficulty of not only the raids themselves, but the ability to gather enough players to win one and the ability to catch one after the raid finishes. 

Now, after the overwhelmingly negative response to the feature, Niantic has announced a few adjustments to make the experience just a little bit better for some players. In a post on Twitter, the company revealed that it has “heard your feedback,” and plans to make upcoming Gigantamax battles against Gengar a little bit easier:

Trainers, we are so grateful to see your excited response to the release of Gigantamax Pokémon! We have heard your feedback and will be making the following changes for the upcoming Gigantamax Gengar Max Battles: 

• Gigantamax Gengar Max Battles will still be challenging, but we will be slightly reducing the difficulty compared to Gigantamax Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise Max Battles.
• Defeating Gigantamax Gengar will reward participating trainers 25k Stardust each.
• Gigantamax Gengar will be more easy to catch once you have defeated it in a Max Battle.

Niantic previously told GLHF that Pokémon Go’s Gigantamax battles wouldn’t be easy, saying that it would be effectively impossible to complete one with fewer than 10 players, but according to players, even that’s unlikely to happen. Players in major cities reported being able to gather around 30 people to participate in Gigantamax battles, but weren’t able to take many down. Even players at the cap of 40 players were struggling in some of the raids, and players in regional and rural areas were unable to even gather the recommended minimum of 10 players to try — something that has reared its head in lower levels of Max Battles, too, with players struggling to get enough people together to defeat even a 3-star raid. 

Those who were lucky enough to get enough people together and scrape by with a win reported issues trying to catch the Gigantamax Pokémon, with one player telling GLHF that in their raiding group of 40, only one was able to successfully catch it, despite most players using Golden Razz berries to increase their catch chance. 

There is currently no option to tackle Max Battles remotely, either, like with many other types of raids, with Niantic seemingly moving away from a COVID-era philosophy of allowing players to join raids from anywhere in the world. Instead, the company has been introducing a host of local-only features to Pokémon Go, including shadow raids, in which players can’t use remote raid passes. 

Whether or not these upcoming changes to the Gigantamax Gengar event, set to debut on Thursday as part of the Halloween 2024 Part 2 event, will improve fan reception to the feature, but it’s a start, at least.