Breakdown
- Fans have been unhappy with the Pokémon Go avatar update ever since launch.
- The latest incident involves a post on X where Niantic tried to advertise the update but the post got hit with a Community Note.
- The replies all demand that Niantic revert the changes and we only have some basic information on how it's dealing with this issue.
It's no secret that Niantic's new avatar update for Pokémon Go has been met with a ton of backlash. It's evident for most players that the updated avatars look much worse, and fans have been demanding a revert and bashing Niantic ever since the change was made.
The most recent case sees Niantic getting Community Noted by Pokémon Go players on an update post they made on X.
In the post, they claim that "players can now customize their eye colour" with the "new update". However, despite the limited colours, this feature has existed for a long time. Users were quick to latch onto this and hit the Tweet with a community note to correct Niantic.
The community note states that "You were always able to change the eye colour of your character, it is not a new feature as claimed in the post." which is petty but technically true. What followed was not petty but the outcry of thousands of players who simply hate this new update.
We spent a long time scrolling, but you'll hardly find a single reply that enjoys the new update. In fact, the original Tweet with 1.7k likes got ratioed by a simple reply saying, "Option to undiscover this update please." which now sits at 2.2k likes.
Players have issues with tons of stuff that the avatar update changed. Examples include things like faces and eyes losing details and making avatars look much younger. It's not just limited to faces, bodies and proportions are way off too.
A reply put out a whole list of personal complaints saying that "Male avatars have boobies, female avatars have hands the size of shovels and walk like dudes. Good job. Spent ~30 mins trying with the toggles, having to accept now that my female avatar will never look female again."
These are only some of the complaints people have. The new update has messed up body proportions and "destroyed waists" for avatars. Some long-time fans have threated to simply quit the game due to these changes.
While it might not seem like a big deal to outsiders, players have always had issues with customising avatars in Pokémon games, including the mainline ones. Pokémon Go's avatar is meant to represent you and players are expected to spend a lot more time with their avatars.
To make matters worse, players had already been fed up with the outdated avatar system before Niantic decided to make it much worse for basically everyone. Hopefully, it'll take these complaints seriously and resolve this issue soon.
Reportedly, Niantic is in the process of collecting community feedback, so let's hope for the best!