Pokemon GO Interaction Distance Radius Increase Now Permanent – What Is 80 Meters To Feet?

Pokemon GO was all about getting people out of the house and interacting in public, but the impact of the pandemic led to various bonuses in the game to help players not be as close to one another, including a radius increase for interaction distance.

When the pandemic hit, Niantic quickly had to make changes to the game to where players could more easily play from home or at the least be able to play out in the open without being forced to congregate in groups.

These updates included things like Remote Raid Passes, increased Incense effectiveness, and a radius increase to 80 meters for interacting with PokeStops and Gyms. However, the latter two were removed last month just when COVID numbers were starting to greatly increase again, sparking a lot of backlash.

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Pokemon GO Radius Increase Now Permanent

When Pokemon GO first launched back in 2016, the interaction distance for PokeStops and Gyms was 40 meters, which was doubled last year to 80 meters as part of the pandemic bonuses.

Then Niantic removed the bonus and brought everything back down to 40 meters, which made a lot of people feel unsafe as a result of the increasing cases around the world. This backlash led to Niantic putting out a statement saying that they were looking into the complaints, reassess everything, and release their findings next month.

They decided not to wait that long though, as they tweeted out that they have now permanently increased the interaction distance in the game to 80 meters.

This is really great news for players, as it shows Niantic is listening to our concerns. It will certainly be interesting to see what else will transpire when it comes to their other changes they will share next week. In the meantime though, the Pokemon GO radius increase has already been implemented.

What Is 80 Meters In Feet?

Since Pokemon GO originally released, everything in game has utilized the Metric system when it comes to distances. This has includes hatch distance for eggs or just walking distance in general.

This also extends to how Niantic handles interaction distance in the game, as the radius increase was announced as going to 80 meters. For those in the US that do not use the Metric system, that may lead to people wondering just how far that is when it comes to the Pokemon GO radius increase.

When converting to feet, 80 meters is approximately 262.467 feet, or 87.489 yards. For a comparison, this means that the interaction distance is now just short of a football field in length.

Make sure to stay tuned next week for the rest of what Niantic has planned when it comes to changes related to Pokemon Go.