Pokemon Go Holiday Event 2017: Start & End Times

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Niantic

Update – December 21:Niantic officially confirmed the dates and effects for this year’s holiday event which offers a number of bonuses to players during different periods.

The holiday event as a whole lasts from December 21 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST to January 4, 2018.

Starting December 21 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST, A Pikachu wearing a Santa Claus hat will start spawning. Ice type Pokemon will also start spawning more frequently. Best of all, Water and Ice type Pokemon from generation three will start appearing, adding additional gen three Pokemon from the 50 introduced two weeks ago. Niantic’s blog post includes Feebas, Milotic, Wailmer, Snorunt, Luvdisc, Relicanth, and the Legendary Pokemon Kyogre. The blog post doesn’t specify when the increased spawns and Santa Hat Pikachus will cease, but we assume that it will end around January 4.

Starting December 22 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST and ending December 25 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST, the first PokeStop you visit each day will gift you with a single-use Egg Incubator.

From December 21 through December 25 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST, special boxes will be offered in the in-game shop offering Super Incubators, Lure Modules, and the brand new Star Pieces which earn bonus Stardust for 30 minutes when activated. Special boxes will feature Premium Raid Passes, Super Incubators, and Star Pieces starting December 25 through January 4, 2018 at 1 p.m. PST/ 4 p.m. EST

Original Story: A holiday event for 2017 in Pokemon Go has been confirmed by Niantic.

Archit Bhargava, Global Marketing Lead for Pokemon Go according to his LinkedIn page, told TechCruch that they’ll be hosting an in-game holiday event around December 21. He didn’t tell them what to expect for the event.

Last year’s holiday event gave players a chance to catch a Pikachu wearing a Santa Claus hat. The event also made Pokestops give players an incubator every day that they visit and increased the chance of getting an egg at Pokestops that hatched into the baby Pokemon. Later in the event, they increased the spawn rates of the Kanto starter Pokemon and their evolutions as well as double the duration of Lure Modules.

The holiday event lasted until January 8, 2017, so we expect this year’s event to end sometime around the end of the first week or January. We also expect this year’s holiday event to have a similar effect as last year’s since this year’s Halloween event had the same effect as last year’s but with more Pokemon receiving increased spawns (most notably the new generation three Pokemon) and the addition of special packages with useful items for sale in the in-game shop.

Speaking of gen three Pokemon, 50 new Pokemon from the generation are arriving to the game later this week with more rolling out over the next several weeks, according to Niantic.

Dynamic weather effects will also be added to the game, according to the developer. In addition to the in-game map changing to reflect if the outside world is sunny, rainy, snowy, foggy, partly cloudy, or windy, weather will affect Pokemon spawn rates and the effectiveness of Pokemon attacks.

The last event to come to the game was the Global Catch Challenge, in which players were tasked with catching over three billion Pokemon to unlock double Stardust, double XP, time extensions for Lure Module activation, and a 48 hour worldwide appearance of Farfetch’d, usually an East Asia exclusive Pokemon, while East Asia gets an appearance by Australia exclusive Kangaskhan. Players caught exactly 3,364,580,633 Pokemon during the seven day event according to Niantic, unlocking all of the perks. Niantic also added Legendary Pokemon Ho-Oh to the game after players reached the 3 billion Pokemon threshold.

The challenge began on November 19 and ended on November 26 but the rewards for double Stardust, double XP, and time extensions for Lure Module activation lasted until December 1. Players have until December 14 to catch Ho-Oh in Raid Battles. The availability of Ho-Oh was increased from its initial end date of December 12 allegedly due to a bug that prevented players from catching Raid Bosses if a member of the Raid Team dropped out mid-raid. The bug was fixed on December 3.

The Global Catch Challenge was meant to coincide with the launch of a new video series known as Pokemon Go Travel where trailers travel the world to catch Pokemon. The series starts with a group of trainers including IHasCupquake, Coisa de Nerd, and Rachel Quirico traveling to Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, and Tottori in Japan. The Global Catch Challenge concluded with a celebration at the Pokemon Go Safari Zone event in Tottori on November 26.

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