What is Shared AR Buddy Experience? Exploring Pokemon GO feature getting removed

While many players are familiar with companies adding features to their online games, Niantic just announced that they will be removing one of the mechanics from Pokemon GO. With the release of the next patch for the game, players will be saying their goodbyes to the Shared AR Buddy feature.

Many players may want to know why this feature is being taken away or what it even is. After all, Niantic must be removing it for a reason, so what might this reason be? Could there potentially be another new feature coming to the game to replace this one?

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Everything to know about Pokemon GO's Shared AR Buddy Experience

The Shared AR Buddy Experience was a feature in Pokemon GO that allowed players to take pictures of their and their friends' Buddy Pokemon. This feature required players to connect their friends to their lobby via a scannable QR code that each participant (apart from the host) needed to scan. After doing so, they would be able to place their Buddy Pokemon alongside those of their friends.

While this was a great idea in concept, it is rather tedious to execute in practice. First, players need to be with at least one other person who plays the game and wants to take the time out of their day to start the process of setting up this feature. Next, both players would need to access the feature, which may take some explaining as many are not familiar with this mode.

Then, the other trainers need to scan the QR code. This is the quickest step in this process. Finally, every player needs to position themselves in such a way that every creature is visible before sending out their own. This can be easily done with smaller creatures, but most players use the Buddy mechanic to grind for candies for their Legendary Pokemon, which are typically very large.

Funnily enough, the community's response to Niantic taking away this feature is relatively positive. Many players who knew about the feature did not find much of a reason to use it, especially when it was so tedious to set up. Newer players, on the other hand, were not even aware that this was something they could do in Pokemon GO.

This has led to many trying to express to Niantic that the AR features, while interesting at the beginning of Pokemon GO's lifespan, have become somewhat of an underused feature, with many players turning it off and never using it entirely. As such, players are happy to see the developers removing the underused features of the game, potentially freeing up space for a new feature to take over.

Overall, the removal of the Shared AR Buddy Experience has gone mostly unnoticed by the community. The feature is incredibly underutilized, so it would make sense for Niantic to remove the feature and potentially introduce something a bit more practical. However, Niantic's decision to remove the feature without providing much explanation seems rather peculiar.