Pokemon Go Elite Raid debut plagues players with game-breaking issues

Zackerie Fairfax
hoopa unbound pokemon go

Hoopa has appeared in Pokemon Go via mysterious new Elite Raids, but its arrival has been accompanied by bugs and issues plaguing trainers trying to enjoy their debut.

On October 15, Niantic launched the new Elite Raids, but they were immediately met with disappointment from fans. This was because the first round of Elite Raids eggs spawned at the same time the Pokemon Go Community Day raids were set to start.

Niantic ended up apologizing for how the Elite Raids impacted the Community Day spawns and pushed back the egg appearances to 6 PM local time instead of 5 PM.

But taking up Raid spawns was just the beginning of the issues players would encounter when attempting to partake in the new Pokemon Go Elite Raids. And there has been no shortage of complaints from players running into bugs and issues during the Elite Raid debut.

Players report wave of issues during Pokemon Go Elite Raids

The first issue arose when players showed up at the Elite Raid gyms, but no one else was there to raid with them. This made players pretty upset as these new raids are far too challenging for trainers to take on solo, and these Raids can only be attempted in person. No Remote Raiding allowed.

However, the second issue arose for players lucky enough to gather the number of trainers required to take the Elite Raid Hoopa down. Players are supposed to encounter rare spawns (Articuno, Wooloo, etc.) but a number of trainers reported that the rare spawn timer appeared, but rare Pokemon never spawned.

Some even claimed that following a successful raid, neither the time nor the spawns showed up.

The third, and arguably most frustrating issue, made it impossible for players to defeat Hoopa. Thanks to a bug, players would defeat Hoopa within the time allotted but the Raid would continue as if the boss still had health. The time would then count down until it hit 0 and then claim that the player had failed the Raid.

Like many of Pokemon Go’s feature debuts, the Elite Raids have left players fairly disappointed due to the abundance of issues. And since these raids are very limited, a lot of trainers were left without being able to truly experience all that Elite Raids have to offer.

About The Author

Zackerie is a former Senior Writer for Dexerto who covered a wide variety of games and entertainment. He has a degree in Creative Writing and was previously the editor of The LaRue County News. Zackerie switched to games media in 2020 writing for outlets such as Screen Rant, Fortnite INTEL, and Charlie INTEL.