Pokemon Go‘s latest update 0.275.0 had players excited after they discovered it doubled the range at which catchable Pokemon appear on the map from 40m to 80m. Despite initial reports suggesting the change was intentional, Niantic has now said that the improvement was a bug that will be reversed.
Because the update notes were so vague, listing it only as “quality-of-life updates; minor bug fixes and performance improvements,” players initially weren’t sure if the update was working as intended. A number of reports from Pokemon content creators initially seemed to confirm that the radius increase was in fact intentional, with Pokemon Go Hub explaining “we were told this was not a bug.” Now-deleted tweets cited by Kotaku also show confirmation from inside sources that the update was working as intended.
After players started to celebrate the update as one of the best for quality of life in Pokemon Go’s recent history, showing off some densely-populated Spotlight Hour screenshots, Niantic has now said that the spawn radius increase was in fact a bug.