Update November 1st 8:35AM: Niantic has confirmed that the Zorua bug which caused Pokemon Go Plus devices to be disabled has been fixed. Earlier today, the company tweeted that functionality for both Pokemon Go Plus and Poke Ball Plus devices had been restored and apologized for the inconvenience. Hopefully, you shouldn't bump into any more Plus issues as a result of this bug now. Original story follows below.
Original story: Zorua might be an adorable little Pokemon, but it's causing some serious issues in Pokemon Go. A Zorua bug has seen Bluetooth accessory Pokemon Go Plus disabled along with other Bluetooth Pokemon Go devices, and there's no timeline as to when we can expect them to come back online.
This issue began on Saturday, when Niantic announced it had disabled Pokemon Go Plus accessories, as well as Poke Ball Plus devices, due to "an issue with Zorua". This news comes just days after Zorua was introduced, disabled, and then re-introduced to Pokemon Go after causing issues during its debut.
If a tweet by Niantic is anything to go by, the bug appears to be related to Zorua impersonating Buddy Pokemon after being caught, then not reverting back to Zorua after capture. Niantic also announced that legendary Pokemon like Giratina, Yveltal, and Darkrai have been disabled in Great League, and since this is part of the same Twitter thread, we can assume the issue is related.
As you might imagine, fans aren't particularly happy with the disabling of their accessories, and comments from community manager Mx. Magpie on Twitter don't seem to have helped matters. In a now-deleted Twitter thread, Mx. Magpie said that watching people learn to play Pokemon Go without their devices was "like seeing people learn how to work out without equipment".
Mx. Magpie's comments drew ire from the community, with fans suggesting that players should "have the ability to play the game the way they want". A Twitter poll carried out by user JRESeawolf found that most fans want to see Zorua disabled until the issue is fixed rather than the Bluetooth devices, with 77% of respondents choosing that option and just 18% choosing to disable Bluetooth devices.
Mx. Magpie says they deleted their Twitter thread because they were "starting to get violent threats" emailed to them. They say they don't mind talking about "hard topics", but that it's "time to hit the pause button" when things escalate to that degree. It's fair to say this issue is a contentious one and some people have strong opinions, but threats of violence are, as ever, completely disproportionate in this instance, so it's hard to disagree with Mx. Magpie's decision.
At time of writing, we still don't have an ETA regarding the re-enabling of Pokemon Go Plus, Poke Ball Plus, or other Bluetooth devices. Unfortunately, it seems you'll just have to go without autocatcher devices until this problem is resolved. For Niantic, this is pretty bad timing; after all, there's some exciting stuff coming to the game in the next few weeks, including the long-awaited Pokemon Go Guzzlord debut in just a week or so. We'll have to wait and see what happens, so watch this space for more info about Pokemon Go.
