Pokémon GO Update Changes Gyms, Brings Back Spark

The newest update for app game Pokémon GO is live now, and it brings back a missing character, solves some annoying bugs, and significantly changes the gym system.

First up, Spark is back! Earlier this month, Team Instinct’s leader Spark went missing, leaving Team Valor’s Candela with his Pokémon appraisal job. Niantic hasn’t explained where Spark went, but he’s back now and ready to appraise more of your catches.

As for the gyms, you might have noticed that Pokémon with a CP of 3,000 or higher have been losing motivation at a significantly faster rate than others. Players weren’t sure if this was intended by Niantic or a bug in the new gym system, and as it turns out, it was the latter.

From now on, all Pokémon defending gyms will lose CP at a rate of about 10% per hour, so you’ll need to horde berries to keep them in shape. Thankfully, you can feed your gym defenders remotely, but you’ll still need to do quite a bit of moving around to keep your berries stocked up.

Another notable bug fix resolves Pokémon GO freezing whenever all six of a player’s Pokémon faint during a raid. This bug has been more problematic recently after Legendary Pokémon were added to raids, causing more players to experience the fainting fighters and thus the game freeze. But that should be all patched up now.

Niantic also fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze after consuming potions too quickly, as well as crash issues iPhone 6 owners were experiencing.

That’s it for news on this update, which bumps up Androids to version 0.69.1 and iOS to 1.39.1.

Stay tuned to A9K for the latest Pokémon GO and other gaming news!