Pokemon Go players finally discover hidden meaning of Gym detail

Some Pokemon Go players are learning the meaning behind subtle changes in the appearance of Pokemon Gyms that populate the overworld.

In the mainline Pokemon video games, each Gym is protected by a single Gym Leader who usually favors a single type. As such, players can easily find out how each Gym is defended by looking up guides online and can prepare a counter strategy based on their Leader’s type preference.

In Pokemon Go, the Gyms are totally different, as they’re guarded by Pokemon belonging to regular players. Each player guards their Pokemon Gym in the name of the team they chose at the start of the game, with battles fought in the name of promoting Team Instinct, Team Mystic, or Team Valor.

The color of a Pokemon Gym reflects its current ownership, with blue Gyms for Team Mystic, red Gyms for Team Valor, yellow Gyms for Team Instinct, and gray Gyms for ones that no one has claimed. There’s an additional difference in Gym appearance that some fans are only just discovering.

Niantic

The color of Pokemon Gyms in Pokemon Go is equal to their difficulty

A user on the Pokemon Go Reddit created a thread asking fellow players what the height of the different Pokemon Gyms is meant to reflect. It turns out that this isn’t an accidental design quirk, as the size of the Gym reflects its contents.

Why are some gyms “elevated” (blue)?
by inpokemongo

“That is a representation of the total sum CP of all Pokemon in there being above a certain threshold. Not sure what exactly the number is though but several thousands,” one user claimed, while another clarified, “8k for the tower gym shown in the picture. 4k for the medium size one.”

One of the reasons why players may not have noticed this design choice in the past is due to bugs. The Gyms in Pokemon Go are notoriously glitchy, with a fluctuating sprite, so they don’t always appear correctly on the overworld.

The size of a Pokemon Go Gym is a great visual shorthand for how well-defended it is. If a player is fairly new to Pokemon Go, they should stay away from the larger Gyms, as they likely won’t have a team that will put a dent in its defenses.

It’s funny how fans can play Pokemon Go for years and miss details like this, especially for a game that demands so much engagement daily. Then again, it’s not like Pokemon Go flashes big neon tutorial signs over everything, and small visual quirks are easy to ignore when all you care about is conquering the Gym.