Pokemon GO dataminers have now looked through the APK for the game’s recent Valentine’s Day update and while it tweaks fonts and changes Pokemon renders in Gyms and battles, it seems that the update has also removed quest data.
Pokemon GO players have posited several theories for why Niantic has done this, including the possibility that the developer initially was but is now not ready to rollout the feature. But the most popular suggestion is that Niantic rolled back the game to a previous version in order to fix some bugs. Continuing to try and patch these bugs with the quests code still in the game may have ended up leading to more bugs and so to avoid that, the Pokemon GO developer just removed the code from the game.
If that is the case, then it makes sense that Niantic would remove the latent code. Pokemon GO players regularly complain about new and frustrating bugs being introduced with the arrival of new gameplay features, but this time Niantic could be getting ahead of things. Most recently, the EX Raid battle invite system was bugged and began sending out invites to players incorrectly (including sending them to players who had not yet completed a raid at a specific Gym).
Regardless, the fact that code has been removed or changed does suggest that Niantic is making progress on the feature. It’s unclear when exactly quests will be released but it seems like they will be one of the major updates to hit Pokemon GO this year, alongside the teased social features.
Pokemon GO is available now for Android and iOS devices.
Source: Reddit
