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Trainers,

the data mine of 0.63.1 APK is complete! Although Niantic tried to trick us with the change log for this update, we’ve managed to avoid any traps they’ve laid for us. The data mine is very exciting and contains spoilers for future updates. Manage your hype responsibly!

Table of contents:

We’re highlighting the most important changes here, but there was a full suite of other changes: better memory management, re-work of the news feature, a number of refactored features.

Let’s start with the important things!

— Update (9:47 AM UTC): minor text fixes for title, added “small changes” like memory management etc, typo fixes.

— Update #2 (5:39 UTC): extracted the new Unown Sprite Sheet.

Gym raids added to the APK

Prior to this release, a dump of network traffic showed that Gym raids are potentially coming. Now it’s official, as handling of raid related network requests for was added to the APK. Although this feature doesn’t look nearly finished in this release, this is what was added inside:

.ACTIVITY_DEFEAT_RAID_POKEMON .ACTIVITY_FEED_BERRY .ACTIVITY_SEARCH_GYM

Together with the network handling code, a new code supporting push notifications was also added. Push notifications will be used to notify you of a nearby raid:

.UNKNOWN_PLATFORM_CLIENT_ACTION .REGISTER_PUSH_NOTIFICATION .UNREGISTER_PUSH_NOTIFICATION .UPDATE_NOTIFICATION_STATUS .OPT_OUT_PUSH_NOTIFICATION_CATEGORY

There is also code mentioning a possible new map overlay, but the results of that were inconclusive. Moreover, we think that 0.63.1 is not the actual build that Niantic is working on, but one of the previous builds used for testing. Hence, this feature isn’t completely fleshed out.

In any case the new code confirms our earlier reports:

Raids are coming, it’s yet completely clear how they work

Feeding your Pokémon is soon to become a thing for Gyms, probably to “prevent stagnant gyms”

What “Search” means in this context is yet to be clarified

Limit for same-species Pokémon in a gym

In an effort to further reduce Gym stagnation and increase Gym diversity, Niantic has added a new setting for gyms – a limit to the number of same Pokémon that can be deployed at the gym.

This change directly counters “Blissey gyms”, which are stacked with 5 Blisseys that are impossible to take down. There is some speculation that this could be related to Legendary usage limits, but it’s purely speculation.

.get_MaxSamePokemonAtFort .set_MaxSamePokemonAtFort

Anti-cheating tool handling

We’ve recently reported that Niantic has deployed a new anti-sniping tool on their backend. The 0.63.1 APK contains a new flag marking if an encounter was blocked by the anti-cheat tool.

Interestingly, PokéStop spins are not blocked by this tool:

ENCOUNTER_BLOCKED_BY_ANTICHEAT

New sponsor

Along with these changes, a new sponsor was added:

.NIA_OPS

NIA OPS stands for Niantic Operatives, so we’re unclear what this sponsorship means, probably something connected to upcoming events.

More support for redeemable codes

Nothing special here, but more code was added to handle redeemable codes:

.PasscodeBindings .Niantic .Platform .Bindings .Passcode .Redeem

This is everything we found in this big data mine. Lots of interesting changes, we can’t wait for the next update to shed more light on the Gym rework.

A new Unown sprite sheet added

Nothing major, but it seems like the Unown icons are now grouped in a sprite sheet (sprite atlas as it is referred in the code).

Our friends at Fev games also reported higher resolution assets for a variety of textures!