Pokemon Go: Is Your Raid Pass Gone if You Back Out of a Raid Battle?

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

With the latest Pokemon Go update, players must be incredibly thoughtful about using their Raid Passes. After all, you only get one of these per day, after which you need to buy Premium Raid Passes in the store. With that in mind, what happens if you join a Raid Battle, only to back out of it? Is there a way to get your pass back?

Unfortunately, no. When you join a Raid Battle, your pass is now gone, even if you back out of the raid before it begins. A lot of times, the reason you’ll want to back out is because no one else shows up to participate in the Raid Battle, and it’s incredibly difficult to defeat a raid boss on your own. There also is no way to search for a Raid Battle group before using your pass, meaning quite a lot of players are activating their passes without realizing that there’s no local interest in this particular Raid Battle, at which point it’s too late.

This would not be as much of an issue if Raid Passes were easier to come by, but you can only obtain a single one of them per day. If you want any more after that, you either have to wait until the next day or buy a Premium Raid Pass in the store.

For this reason, players have been begging Niantic to not use their Raid Pass until after the raid has actually begun. At the very least, a lot of fans are hoping for some sort of chat system. That way, they could coordinate with those in the area and see who’s going to participate in the Raid Battle, rather than just blindly walking up to anyone on their phone and asking them if they’re playing Pokemon Go.

Niantic lately has been quick to respond to widespread complaints, and so it would not be surprising to see them address this in the coming days, although they of course want to keep up demand for Premium Raid Passes in order to increase revenue.