‘Pokémon GO’ Game Maker Niantic Takes Back Legendary Pokémon Articuno

Pokémon GO game maker Niantic snatched Legendary Pokémon Articuno from a couple in Ohio quickly after realizing the legendary character was mistakenly released. On Tuesday, a Pokémon Trainer by the handle kaitcovey uploaded screenshots and video of her recently acquired Articuno in an attempt to prove the legitimacy of her claim. The news of her catch spread like wildfire across the internet, and Niantic moved quickly to respond.

“We recently noticed that a few Legendary Pokémon got into a few accounts when they shouldn’t have. To preserve the game’s integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokémon from the Trainers’ accounts”

There have been rumors that Niantic has been handing out special Pokémon to Trainers who experience difficulty with the program, but there has been no evidence to substantiate these claims. Kaitlyn Covey claimed on social media sites that it “is simply the truth,” referring to the alleged gifting of the creature. This does suggest that Pokémon GO Legendary Pokémon are part of the game’s future plans.

One thing continues to remain very clear: Niantic has not made very many friends among players in the past couple weeks. After the most recent updates were released, players were outraged to see that the game makers had removed the tracking ability in the game. This reaction was largely shared to spite the constant complaints that the game’s tracking system was far too complicated to interpret.

In an attempt to remedy server issues, many third-party apps were also blocked from interacting with the game’s interface in an attempt to remedy the crippling server issues that have been a problem since the game’s release last month.

Thank you for your patience. We have been working to fix the server issues. We will continue rolling out #PokemonGO to new countries soon.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 8, 2016

All this before the game has even been released worldwide. There are still some countries that are left waiting for Pokémon GO to become available in their region. India and Brazil are among the countries still counting the moments until release. Although people in India have been playing the game for weeks, it has not yet been officially launched in the country. Niantic hopes to go live with the servers in Brazil prior to the upcoming Rio Olympic Games.

The appearance of such a rare Pokémon in Ohio naturally turned a few heads in the gaming community. Niantic may have released a statement to cover their “gifting” of the tiny digital monster. Legendary owner Kaitlyn Covey holds firm that her claim is truthful, but there could be many different explanations for Articuno’s appearance.

One far more uncontrollable possibility is that the sightings were a messy glitch in the game. Reddit published many reports of Trainers capturing one character, only to find that it had morphed into something completely different upon capture.

There have been endless complaints with the servers moving slowly or not working at all. Niantic’s latest game update was supposed to remedy those issues but has yet to truly conquer the problem. Reportedly, only 52 percent of players have no trouble logging into the game. This is a huge problem for such a highly trending platform.

Pokémon GO game makers have had a rough go of it in its first weeks of live play, but Trainers are not bowing out. The undeniable challenge to “catch ’em all” holds a strong grasp in the hearts of many loyal gamers. The Pokémon Company has certainly built its own empire that stretches all around the globe.

[Photo by Olivia Harris/Getty Images]