Stufful debuts in Pokémon Go’s April 2022 Community Day, returning to the original three-hour event time

Another Pokémon is being added to Pokémon Go’s growing roster, and it will arrive for the April 2022 Community Day event. Stufful, the flailing Pokémon, will be coming on April 23. This Community Day event also marks the first time Niantic is reverting to the original event time, swapping out the 11 AM to 5 PM times with 2 PM to 5 PM in your local time zone.

On April 23, from 2 PM to 5 PM, Stufful will be appearing in the wild throughout your local area. You’ll have the chance to encounter this Pokémon as you play the game, and you can use incense to increase the chances of finding one. If you evolve Stufful into its second form, Bewear, it will learn the charged move drain punch, making a debut for the event. There’s also the chance for every player to potentially catch a shiny Stufful in the wild.

Many fans might question Niantic’s choice about reverting back to the three-hour Community Day window rather than keeping the extended timer, which occurred during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020. When asked about the reasoning for going back to the three-hour window, game director Michael Steranka said, “We recognize this change will impact a small number of players who can’t change work schedules or other commitments, but overall we’re confident this is a move that will improve the Community Day experience for Trainers on the whole. While the six-hour format offered more flexibility, such a long event window distributed players considerably. Ultimately, that meant we lost the “community” aspect of Community Day because players could participate without ever crossing paths with anybody else.”

Increasing the Community Day time was one of the many changes Niantic had made during the COVID-19 Pandemic, such as increasing the Poké Stop and Gym interaction distance, the number of gifts players carried, increasing incense timer, and removing the walking requirement for Battle League matches.

Niantic had previously attempted to remove these changes to their original settings, namely the Poké Stop and Gym interaction distance, but the Pokémon Go community spoke out against it, and Niantic made the change permanently. We don’t see this Community Day change being one of the more positive changes, and we suspect the Pokémon Go community will make their voices heard once again on this topic.