(Niantic)
With the latest Pokemon Go update, players have more of a reason than ever to want to remove some of their own Pokemon from gyms. So is this something that is possible in the game? Is there a way of bringing any of your Pokemon home?
Unfortunately, Pokemon Go does not currently allow players to remove their own Pokemon from gyms. The only way to get your Pokemon back is for them to be defeated in battle by enemy players.
This is a feature that a lot of players have been asking for, particularly those who live in rural environments for whom gyms are not overthrown as often as those players who lives in major cities. Fans especially want to be able to bring back their own Pokemon now because in the game’s latest update, you don’t actually get any coin bonus until your Pokemon leaves the gym. You used to be able to claim your coin bonus once every 21 hours, even when the Pokemon was still in the gym, but that’s no longer the case.
The game has also instituted a rule where you can’t have Pokemon stationed in more than 20 gyms. If you wind up reaching this limit, then, but find a gym that you really want to put a Pokemon in, you’re basically out of luck; you just have to wait until someone defeats one of your already-stationed Pokemon so that this makes room and you can place another Pokemon out into the world.
The ability to remove Pokemon from gyms is such a frequently requested feature that a Niantic employee recently addressed it on Reddit. He said that he would share the suggestion with the rest of the Niantic team, although saying that he doesn’t exactly get a say in these types of matters.
“It sounds like a lot of folks would like the ability to recall a Pokémon on a Gym,” the Niantic employee wrote. “I can share that suggestion with the team. But I should warn you, I don’t have much of a seat at the table for promoting feature change like this.”