Niantic’s Wayfarer system has been a trusty companion for the past few years, serving as a a key system in what makes the Pokémon GO map alive and vibrant. However, reviewing PokéStops (aka Wayspots as they are called in the Wayfarer lingo) does get stale, especially if the sentiment of other reviewers is… lacking your enthusiasm.
With that in mind, we read the recent release of the Wayfarer Roadmap 2025-2026 with silent excitement – can Scopely* make Wayfarer fun again? Can the “missing more reviews” limbo be fixed once and for all? Seems like yes!
Three Pillars of the New Wayfarer Roadmap
The Wayfarer Team shared that they are focusing on three pillars with all of the new features and tools they have in mind (corp speak ahead):
Empower
You are at the heart of our maps, and we want to give you more power to make them better. Imagine having additional control over your contributions and smarter and more accurate auto-decision systems. We are significantly improving the automated review with new technologies. We are thinking about new ways for the community to own and leverage the map for better game play.
Growth
The Wayfinder community is growing, and we’re bringing Wayfarer to new places. We’re excited to announce that we’re revamping the player eligibility requirements, inviting more users to participate in Wayfarer. We are also exploring ways to support remote and rural players and making it simpler for all Wayfinders to discover new areas to nominate and review, resulting in an enriched game experience for everyone, everywhere.
Joy
Wayfarer should be as rewarding as it is impactful. We’re introducing more fun into the experience with brand new recognition systems and a new opt-in leaderboard. We’re also making the entire platform smoother and more intuitive, so you can spend less time on tasks and more time on what you do best: shaping the world of Niantic games.
All Announced Wayfarer Features (2025–2026)
In order to achieve the new pillars, the Wayfarer team has released a list of new features and tools that are planned for the next year. Here are all the new Wayfarer features that have been announced:
- Increased Opportunities to Appeal
- Increased Distance for Submissions
- A Wayfarer Map
- Web Wayspot + Edit Submission
- Surfacing High-Quality Wayspots
- Wayfinder Center and Hub
- Improved Auto-Resolution
- New Wayfinder Rating System enabling Tiered Contribution Limits
- A Regional and Global Opt-In Leaderboard
Most of these look like great additions and some missing features, but we are especially excited for the Wayfarer Map! The map should serve the same purpose as the Ingress Intel map, displaying existing Wayspots and their status. This will make it easier to see where nominations are needed and prevent duplicate submissions in already crowded areas.
In addition to the map, the global Leaderboard sounds interesting, and the web based Wayspot submission should make it easier to submit multiple Wayspots in one go. Some of these sound too vague to understand the implementation details, so we will reserve some judgment for the improved auto-resolution and appeals. If they do a good job, they could actually make Wayfarer a fun side-activity for most Trainers.
The team is also planning an AMA (Ask Me Anything) to kick off on October 8, 2025! They want to hear from you about the new roadmap and anything else Wayfarer-related. Check this article again in the near future for a link to the AMA.
(*) Scopely owns Wayfarer, but the transition away from the Niantic is problematic and will take some time. In this article, the Wayfarer Team tried to shed some clarity, but as far as we see, it is still called Niantic Wayfarer.
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