Pokemon GO has been updated, or better to say downgraded, to version number 0.79.4 until issues with 0.81.1 are resolved. As we’ve previously reported, propagation of the 0.81.1 update was stopped due to an ever increasing number of bugs reported by players worldwide.
Now, Niantic has gone a step further and reverted the in-store app version to 0.79.4, or to be honest, 0.79.3. We data mined the “new” 0.79.4 and found it to be exactly the same as 0.79.3. No new assets, no code changes, nothing new when compared to 0.79.3.
We can confirm that 0.79.4 is a complete rollback of 0.81.1. These are the features that we’ve lost (temporarily):
- You can’t power up Pokemon up to level 39.5
- Unity engine has been reverted to its previous version, re-introducing the background sound bug
- Generation III move effects have been removed. Doom Desire, Draco Meteor, Psycho Boost, Surf, Take Down (fast), Waterfall (fast) and Yawn (fast) effects are no longer in the APK.
- Blacklist and memory management tweaks have been reverted
Official Tweet:
While we investigate the issues in 0.81.1, we'll be rolling out Pokémon GO version 0.79.4 with some minor fixes. (2/2) https://t.co/0VeDm3JB6F
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) November 7, 2017
Should you continue using 0.81.1?
If your device has no problems with it, yes, absolutely. 0.81.1 does crash more on average, but it fixes the background sound issue. For us, that’s a good enough reason to deal with the rest. You can still grab the 0.81.1 APK on APK Mirror and play with it.
What’s coming next?
We expect that a new 0.81.x update will be announced next week, given how this week’s “update slot” was hijacked by 0.79.4. Niantic has been relatively consistent in pushing a new update every second Tuesday, or Thursday next week if something is urgent.
Thanksgivings is also around the corner (November 23) and we expect to see some hints of the event in the upcoming APKs. Remember, last year we’ve got a great Thanksgivings event: Pokémon GO Thanksgiving Event announced: Double XP and Stardust from November 23rd to 30th! (*)
Maybe we’ll even get more Gen III moves in the next release, who knows?
(*) Editor’s note: Ah, the good old times. Back in the day, we thought it is super cool if we put an image of a turkey as the featured article’s image. Glad those times are behind us.
