The Pokémon Go community’s faith is shaken following the most recent Elite Raids featuring Regidrago. Not only were the raids challenging to complete for players looking to gather a workable team, but connecting to these raids was extremely buggy, leading to multiple errors. After a disappointing weekend, dataminers have discovered a new type of raid is on the way to Pokémon Go, Shadow Raids, which appear to feature shadow Pokémon previously controlled by Team Rocket.
These were discovered by the datamining team at Pokeminers, who shared their report in a live update on their Twitter page. From what they shared, Shadow Raids are set to have five levels to them, similar to the traditional raid system before they swapped to the one, three, and five-star system. It also looks like these raids will require a unique type of raid ticket, meaning players might expect to pay money for them or earn them uniquely.
How the Shadow Raids work will likely be similar to the traditional raids, where a featured Pokémon is far more powerful than its standard form. For players typically hunting for specific shadow Pokémon, it might make tracking them down easier than trying to find a particular Team Rocket trainer.
The downside to learning about a new type of raid is that players are likely discouraged from hearing about a new system following the disastrous weekend of the Regidrago Elite Raids. For many in New Zealand, not everyone had a good time with these encounters, frequently hitting error codes, being dropped from raids, or learning that they could not participate in them alongside their friends.
More community members are standing up and attempting to get Niantic’s attention about these problems, hoping the company wants their feedback. In response to these messages, the Pokémon Go team shared in a blog post on their website that they have renewed their commitment to bolstering the Pokémon Go in-person experience worldwide.
Unfortunately, the timeliness of this article and the ongoing problems of the Elite Raids show that while Niantic wants to display its commitment to the community, these two frequently clash. The Pokémon Go community has a vastly different vision than Niantic has, leading to frequent disappointments.
We don’t know when these Shadow Raids are expected to arrive in Pokémon Go, but when they do, we hope to learn more about how they work and the type of Pokémon they’re going to feature. Hopefully, these are a better way to reliably catch highly sought-after shadow Pokémon that are typically difficult to track down, and that Niantic tests these raids before releasing them to the community.
