Niantic has just announced that a lot of new game play locations that were reviewed via the Operation Portal Recon program (Ingress only) will soon be added into Pokémon GO!
The following tweet was shared today:
With the help of Ingress Agents around the world using Operation Portal Recon, we’ve identified interesting new locations to play our games. We’re happy to say that many of these locations will also be added to @PokemonGoApp over the next few days.
— Niantic, Inc. (@NianticLabs) December 21, 2017
We are very excited for the next few days, as this could be the start of an ongoing effort to create a better and more balanced gameplay environment for rural and urban player alike.
OPR was already the major driving factor behind recent PokéStop changes, bringing new PokéStops and changes to old ones, but Niantic has never officially acknowledged the connection before.
As a part of OPR, Ingress agents have reviewed literally hundreds of thousands of portal candidates, updated a metric ton of existing portals and resolved a number of outstanding issues such as inaccessible or military only locations.
We’ve received more than 4000 e-mails over the past 12 months that are either complaints or suggestions about the state of rural gameplay. Unfortunately, we can’t do much as GO Hub (or any other media outlet) doesn’t have a say or influence over Niantic’s strategy and design decisions.
However, we strongly believe that your complaints have been heard — this is the first time that Niantic has publicly, on social media, announced a plan (with a timeline!) to add more PokéStops.
To all Ingress players reading this, thank you. Without your commitment and efforts, there would be no Pokémon GO. We can only hope that Ingress 2.0 will fulfill your wishes and expectations!