I’ve slowly been drawn back into Pokemon Go after a fairly lengthy absence. The increase in Remote Raid prices killed my local community, and playing near me has been much less fun because of that. I didn’t open the app for a solid month, but a couple of key changes pulled me back in.
I wanted a Master Ball, for starters, so I logged in to start the research tasks for that. Then Go Fest London was announced, and while I didn’t want to buy a ticket, these kinds of events are the lifeblood of my Pokemon Go experience – playing together with likeminded people. Seven-year habits are hard to kick, I guess.
As I started playing more regularly, I inevitably encountered the new additions that Niantic has brought to the game. In order to get Zygarde, there’s a Special Research questline that forces you to engage with the game’s latest feature, Routes. There’s just one issue: I have no Routes near me.
I live in the suburbs of Liverpool in the north of England, and there isn’t a single Route near me when I search in-game. I have to walk three Routes in order to complete this mission, and collect one Zygarde Cell, items which randomly appear when you’re walking on a Route. Eventually, all players will be able to create their own Routes, but for now, the implementation is limited, meaning rural and even suburban players are being left in the cold. Again.
So I headed to London to find one. While I wasn’t attending Go Fest, there was a meetup to mark the event happening near Tower Bridge, and the capital was transformed with new PokeStops for city-wide play outside of the confines of the ticketed area, so I hopped on a 200-mile train to see what was happening. I wanted to check out the vibe, and see if I could finally progress on my quest to catch Zygarde. Immediately upon my arrival, I was greeted by a promising sign: Routes. My quest could begin.
I opted for a big boy to start with, as someone had created a Route that led from the Tower of London all the way along the Thames to Big Ben. It was a four and a half kilometre trek along the river that took me the best part of an hour, stopping a few times to battle Gyms or catch particularly stubborn Pokemon on my route. It was a hot day and I was knackered by the end, but I’d chosen to kick off with a long trip, so I only had myself to blame. The walk showed me many of the sights of London, including the big two at the start and end, and generally worked as intended, following virtual paths to follow in the footsteps of its creator.
However, there was no Zygarde Cell along the way. That was a little frustrating for all the effort I’d gone to, but alas. The Research needed me to walk three Routes and collect one Cell, so perhaps they have a 33 percent drop rate? Time to find out. Routes can be walked forwards or backwards, but I decided against heading all the way back to the Tower of London at this time. There were a bunch of shorter routes nearby, in places where I actually wanted to go.
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I made my way to Soho, where the Routes started getting wonky. After picking out some vintage tees, I followed a half-kilometre route that promised a tour of the area. Except, it was all glitched, went back on itself like four or five times, and at one point, shot off in a sharp diagonal through multiple buildings before returning to the intended path. The Route clearly had GPS issues, but I somehow managed to finagle my way through the problems to complete it. I don’t know what the people sitting in the cafes drinking coffee thought of me walking up and down the same street over again, but I needed to follow the path and make up the missing kilometres in order to proceed to the end goal.
After all that, how many Zygarde Cells had I found? Zero. This was the story of my day. I walked three or four more short Routes to no avail, covering over 20km in the process. I had a great day in the city, don’t get me wrong, but I’m convinced that Zygarde Cells are a myth. The fact you need 250 of the critters in order to fully evolve the little doggo has me wondering if I’ll ever do it, or if it’s even worth my time when I have to travel so far to even attempt a Route?
Routes are a neat idea pushed out with little testing. While my other journeys were less eventful, the fact I had to travel across the country to find the Routes and that I didn’t get a single Zygarde Cell from a day’s play makes them inaccessible to the vast majority of players. Routes could revolutionise rural play, giving trainers opportunities to get together and earn rewards without the need to travel to their nearest (or biggest) city, but all players need to be given the ability to create Routes for them to bring small communities together. That seems like the plan, but the implementation can’t come soon enough.