Pokemon Go players demand Niantic reverse recent AR change

The recent Pokemon Go update removing default AR in favor of VR+ has proven controversial, with players demanding Niantic reverse the change.

Pokemon Go‘s latest update has frustrated players speaking out, demanding that Niantic reintroduce the game’s original AR mode after replacing it entirely with AR+.

While early reactions were split, with some praising the game’s new non-AR options for interacting with Buddy Pokemon, reception towards the change has become overwhelmingly negative. This includes a Reddit post by Jiqu0r, who lays out why making AR+ the only option is “not okay.”

As they explain, “We can no longer take simple photos in small areas, playing at night is now more difficult, the flow of the game has been destroyed for catching and encountering Pokémon, and so much more hinderances with the removal of Natural AR.”

They also criticized the fact that Niantic implemented the change with “no warning or testing … before it occurred” and said players downplaying the changes were being “insensitive” to those who had come to rely on AR for catching and grinding.

Comments on the post are full of players who say they’ve either turned off AR+ or stopped playing altogether. “Literally the main reason I played the game was to get silly pictures of Pokemon in random places,” said one.

Another commenter got specific in explaining how the update hurts Pokemon Go photographers, explaining, “If you ever want to take any sort of AR picture, AR+ sucks. It’s clunky, slow, and less flexible.”

While AR+ has been part of Pokemon Go since 2017, prior to this update, players had the option to use it or what the poster calls “natural” AR. With AR+, Pokemon are fixed to a spot in the real-world environment rather than a point on the screen. They also appear to scale, with their size changing depending on the species and your distance from them.

AR+ makes encounters more immersive, but it also makes catching far more difficult, which is why players want to have the option to switch between them.