Niantic removes habitat rotation from Pokémon Go Fest, promises makeup event

A key feature didn't work as expected.

Image via Niantic

Despite hyping up Habitat rotations and the five different Biomes for Pokémon Go Fest 2020, it appears some technical issues have forced Niantic to change its plans and cancel that feature.

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Instead, a makeup event will be held at a later date with similar mechanics since habitats will no longer be a core feature of Go Fest 2020. 

Removing the habitat rotations won’t tank the entire Go Fest event, but it could hamper how effectively some players can finish some of the challenges. 

Each Biome or Habitat would have had a theme and rotate every hour based on every player’s local time, starting at 10am and ending at 8pm. And they would have played into several related global challenges, which might need to be updated now. 

That is especially true for the Special Research Tasks that require players to capture 20 Fire, Water, and Grass-types. It would have been easy to do that during the themed habitat hours based on those elements, but now it is going to require a little more patience. 

For every habitat, a different set of Pokémon would have increased spawn rates, including special event variations of the Kanto starters, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle, that are all wearing Pikachu-themed visors. It is now unclear how those special event Pokémon will be distributed. 

A finalized date and new information will be given about the makeup event in the future, but expect something that incorporates the five habitats in a rotating schedule to pop up in the coming months.

Author
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Cale Michael
Lead Staff Writer for Dota 2, the FGC, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and more who has been writing for Dot Esports since 2018. Graduated with a degree in Journalism from Oklahoma Christian University and also previously covered the NBA. You can usually find him writing, reading, or watching an FGC tournament.