After enjoying more than a week of the bonuses unlocked from the Annual Pokemon Go Fest event, Niantic has announced their next event which will be to celebrate the third anniversary of the game! With this event, they continue to look towards adding more depth and expanding the amount of engagement within the game for the community. It all started June 28th and the first portion will continue thru July 6th. First, Alolan form Pokemon will now have a chance of having their Shiny forms found. This includes: Rattata, Sandshrew, Vulpix, Diglett, Meowth, Geodude, Grimer and Exeggutor. Next, cosmetic avatar gear will also be available to trainers in celebration of the anniversary.
As one of the more traditional changes, Pikachu returns with his party hat form which can now photobomb your pictures from the GO Snapshot. In fact, he is guaranteed to photobomb once per day during this first week of events. The baby form, Pichu, can also be hatched from 7km eggs sent from friends and will also have the party hat. Both Pikachu and Pichu can also be Shiny! They are extremely rare but would be great additions to our Pokemon collections.
There is also a broader event that start with this one that will last until September 2nd. This event is meant for trainers to get boosts in leveling up their characters over this time. First, a Special Research task will be deployed that will help trainers gain well needed materials like candy, Stardust and XP. There is also an announcement that says that Raid bosses can be defeated faster when battling with friends as well as the opportunity to catch will improve as more Prestige balls will be given with completion of the Raids. Lastly, the costs to trade Pokemon with friends will also be reduce by 25% during this time.
Niantic continues to deploy events for trainers and their community which keep all engage as the game continues to evolve. It seem as the anniversary is just a starting point for what comes next for the mobile game as they have already started to hint at new content. For example, Team Rocket was said to make appearances in game at Pokemon GO Fest as well as in the poster image on Niantic’s Twitter page. Also, the poster has images of the Generation Five Starter Pokemon which could signal the start of the new generation to come soon!
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