Niantic promised to allow trainers to play Raid Battles from home and it looks they have delivered. This will be done using the reported Remote Raid Pass.
According to info from the infamous Pokemon data miners the PokeMiners, the Remote Raid Pass can already be found in the code. When it will be added to the game though, is unknown.
Niantic did confirm this was something they’re working on when they addressed changes upcoming changes to Pokemon Go. They haven’t officially announced anything regarding a Remote Raid Pass and therefore, despite being in the code, it could be subject to change.
How will the Remote Raid Pass work?
Remote Raid Passes will works similarly to the traditional Premium Raid Pass whereby they’ll be purchased from the Pokemon Go Shop. We’d expect them to cost anywhere up to 100 Poke Coins.
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These new passes will be required to play a Raid Battle if you’re outside the range of a gym. While there seems to be no limit on which Raid Battles you can participate in, Pokemon in remote raids will deal less damage.
This will encourage players to play locally (physically there) where possible. Obviously Niantic won’t want to incentivize trainers to leave their homes too much, so we’d imagine the difference in damage won’t be too significant.
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There will also be able a limit to how many remote players can participate in comparison to local. Presumably, this will stop remote players jumping on Raid Battles with a lot of local players.
Play with friends
It has also been revealed there will be a system to join friends who are also playing remotely. “Looks like a friend will be able to invite you to a raid and ‘callout’ they are interested in doing a raid,” the PokeMiners shared.
Given a lot Pokemon Go friends live a long way from each other, this suggests there won’t be any limit on how far a Raid Battle is for you to participate.
It’s also noteworthy that Niantic added a new item to enable remote raids. This means they’ll be able to turn it on and off at will.
So, it’ll be interesting to see if this is a permanent addition to Pokemon Go or just a short-term method to help those in quarantine.