You can now play Pokemon GO Raid Battles at level 25

Niantic has changed its mind three times in quick succession about one of the latest new features in Pokemon GO, but it’s for the best.

Of all the changes to Gyms brought about in the latest update for Pokemon GO, the one with the most potential to draw lapsed players back to summer ’16’s mobile gaming sensation is Raid Battles. Announced earlier this week, these are exactly what they sound like: co-op battles against Pokemon so powerful that players need to band together to defeat them.

What’s so great about Raid Battles is that they provide an in-game social element that Pokemon GO desperately needs — and probably should have had from the start, but that’s a subreddit thread for another time.

There was just one big problem when Raid Battles started rolling out: you needed to be level 25 or up to participate in them. That’s … well, trust us, that requires a level of devotion to the game that only the most faithful have shown in its first year, and thus pretty much ensures that most people who drifted away wouldn’t bother coming back.

Niantic seems to have realized this, and even though the studio hasn’t exactly been Johnny on the spot in terms of speed for previous changes to Pokemon GO, it’s acted quickly here. First it dropped the Raid Battle level requirement to 31, then to 28, and now …

That’s more like it. In truth, given the strength of the Pokemon used by the die-hard player base, it might be as low as the level requirement can go and still give more casual types a chance at contributing something useful to a Raid Battle, where the boss monster has to be defeated in a manner of minutes.

Next: Nintendo says Pokemon game for Switch coming next year

In any case, if you’ve hit, say, level 20 but not 25, this should give you some additional motivation to get out there and rack up some XP so you can play in Raid Battles this summer. We know we will be.