Trainers,
two (now three) European shopping malls (all part of Niantic’s Unibail-Rodamco partnership program) are claiming that the Raids Beta will soon go live, however, there is NO CONFIRMATION that this is true.
Update: a French reader called Mr Nightingale shared that another French mall has the same post up, with the following message (translated by Mr Nightingale):
[PokémonGO] Dear trainers: Raids arrive in France! A new gym and Pokestops were created for the occasion at Euralille. Come and play with your friends to defeat the bosses of the central gym. For now only certain beta testers have access to this feature but it will soon spread to all trainers. Get ready to become the best Euralille trainer and face extremely powerful Pokémon! Flag this message Delete this message
So far, Les Quatre Temps (Paris), Centre Commercial – Euralille and Fisketorvet Shopping Center (Copenhagen) are claiming that raids are going live soon, with Quatre Temps going as far as publishing the following statement on their official Facebook fan page (link):
Attention, Pokémon GO Trainers: The Raid Battles, a new collective adventure, have been announced in your Pokémon GO game, and we’re here to help you discover your first raid! You and your friends will soon be able to play together to become the Raidmaster of the gym of Les Quatres Temps.
This feature will only be available to a certain number of players in the testing phase, but more players will be invited to participate in the coming weeks. Stop at Les 4 temps and come fight together to catch a super/rare Pokémon! For more information, visit http://pokemongolive.com/en/post/raids
The quote above was translated by Mr Nightingale, a French GO Hub reader. Much obliged!
Fisketorvet has a similar post up, claiming exactly the same information:
At this point we believe this was not an intentional mistake in their public communication, just weird timing and wording for this post. Judging by the visual assets and logos used, these posts are using official Niantic provided branding and visual identity.
We know that it’s not possible that Raids will go live before Gyms reopen, so this means that Gyms are reopening soon or that both shopping malls have made the same mistake at the same time.
We’re expecting to hear more official news soon.
