‘Pokemon Go’ Gym Update: Can Different Teams Go on Raids Together?

Pokemon Go, Pokemon Go raids, Pokemon Go raid update

A new gym update is coming to Pokemon Go. (Niantic)

A massive new Pokemon Go update has just been announced, with one of the key aspects of it being a raid system. This involves players teaming up to take down Raid Bosses at gyms, but how exactly will teams factor into this experience? Will you and all of your raid partners have to be a member of the same team in order to participate?

At this time, it appears that members of all three teams – Instinct, Mystic and Valor – will be able to join forces on raids. After all, just take a look at the following screenshot Niantic released today, which shows a player from Team Mystic and a player from Team Valor about to go on a raid together.

Pokemon Go niantic, Pokemon Go gym update, Pokemon Go gym update screenshots

A preview of the forthcoming gym update in ‘Pokemon Go.’ (Niantic)

This should come as good news to Pokemon Go players, as raids will be something that require quite a few gamers’ participation, and it might be difficult to find enough people if you were confined to members of the same team. However, allowing cross-team participation will make the process a lot simpler, especially for those who don’t live in major cities. Plus, it makes sense that for something as massive as taking on a raid boss, team affiliation wouldn’t be too important.

This is not to say that teams will not still be a major factor in Pokemon Go, though. Gyms will still be claimed for one of three teams, and your goal is still to keep that team defended on behalf of either Mystic, Instinct or Valor. However, maintaining a gym will now be a bit more challenging due to a number of changes that Niantic Labs is implementing. For one, there will be something called a motivation meter, which essentially means that you have to continue to feed Pokemon berries as they are stationed in gyms, otherwise they will lose CP and become easier to beat. You therefore will no longer really be able to just set up a Pokemon in a gym and leave it there for ages.

The Pokemon Go gym changes are expected to take effect over the course of the next few weeks; they’ll be rolling out to some players in a beta phase and then will slowly expand until everyone has access to them.