Pokémon Go’s raid curfew causes problems with late-night legendary launch

Pokémon Go’s newest legendary, Moltres, is now available through next Monday. But the game’s restrictions on when players can participate in the battles where these rare Pokémon are found meant that last night, players on the East Coast completely missed out on Moltres’ first day in the game.

Active players have speculated that Raid Battles, which allow them to team up and take down strong Pokémon together, have a curfew. This varies by region, but the consensus is that Raids are not available between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. Some Redditors have suggested that these battles end as early as 7:30 p.m. ET, however, with battles starting up again as early as 6 a.m. ET.

Whenever the curfew officially starts and ends, the time restraints mean that, if there’s a legendary Pokémon out there, players will have to wait until the morning to try to find it.

When the game’s developer Niantic announced that Moltres would replace Articuno on Aug. 7, for its weeklong stint in the game, players expected to have a chance to catch the Pokémon throughout that day. But the game’s account didn’t confirm that Moltres was live until almost 7:30 p.m. ET — just before the Raid Battle curfew was set to start.

This left East Coast players largely unable to hunt for Moltres on that first day, giving them just six days total to catch one. To some, having 24 fewer hours than expected isn’t a huge deal — but with how difficult these legendary Raid Battles can be, and no guarantee that players can catch one of these monsters, Pokémon Go’s biggest collectors want all the time they can get.

Pokémon Go/Twitter

Moltres will be replaced with Zapdos, the final of the three legendary birds, on Aug. 14. We’ll find out then if Niantic gives East Coast trainers more time to hunt that one down than it did with Moltres.