Today developer Niantic announced that a slew of brand new events will be hitting Pokémon GO in the coming months in order to celebrate the game’s one-year anniversary, as well the milestone of 750 million global downloads. These events will take place both in the real world, and in-game.
First off we have the Solstice Event, which will start in less than a week, on Tuesday, June 13th, 2017. It’s unknown how long this event will last for, however, it will take place in-game and will feature Fire-type and Ice-type Pokémon. In addition, players will be able to receive a huge XP bonus depending on how accurate their Pokéball throws are. Lucky Eggs will also be receiving a discount in the in-game shop, however, at the time of this writing, the extent of the discount is unknown.
Niantic confirmed that after the event is over it will be rolling out a brand new update for the game that will be focused on collaborative play, which it says will allow users to play the game in fun new ways. The developer said that in order to prepare for the launch of this update, it will be disabling Gyms for a short time, however when they will be disabled is unknown.
The next event we have is Pokémon GO Fest Chicago, which will be the first real-world event for Pokémon GO. The event will take place in Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, on July 22nd, 2017. Attendees will have to purchase a ticket and the event will go live on June 19th, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. PDT. (1:00 p.m. EDT, 12:00 p.m. local time). At the time of this writing, it is unknown exactly how much these tickets will cost.
Finally we have some details about some events coming later in the year. For European players, Niantic has partnered with Unibail-Rodamco shopping centers in order to bring Pokémon GO events to the continent during the months between June and September. According to the developer, the schedule will go up soon. For Japanese players, Niantic will be hosting Pikachu Outbreak in Yokohama in August.
Pokémon GO was released on iOS and Android devices on July 6th, 2016.