Trainers,

Love is in the air! Our annual Valentine’s Day event is back. From Friday, February 14, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. to Monday, February 17, 2020, at 10:00 p.m. in your local time zone, pink Pokémon will be appearing more often in the wild, in raids, in Eggs, and as Field Research encounters.

Audino, the Hearing Pokémon, and Alomomola, the Caring Pokémon, will be making their Pokémon GO debut! They’ll be appearing in the wild and hatching from 7 km Eggs. They're rare though, so you might encounter them only if you’re very lucky! Audino and Alomomola will remain available (and incredibly hard to find!) in Pokémon GO after the event ends.

Regular Lure Modules activated during the event will last six hours, and you’ll receive a 2× Catch Candy bonus. Pink Pokémon—like Lickitung, Porygon, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Tyrogue, Smoochum, Luvdisc, and Happiny—will be hatching from 7 km Eggs. If you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny Chansey in the wild or hatch a Shiny Happiny!

Celebrate the ...

Trainers,

The UK’s first-ever Safari Zone will be taking place in beautiful waterfront Liverpool! Enjoy this ticketed event in the magnificent 235-acre Sefton Park from Friday, April 17, to Sunday, April 19, 2020. As previously announced, Trainers will have the opportunity to encounter Krabby, Dratini, Chinchou, Unown V, and Oshawott in the wild. Relicanth—typically available only in New Zealand, Samoa, and some other islands in the southwest Pacific—will also be appearing in the wild, so be sure to catch one if you haven’t already.

Interested in spending this spring weekend by the water with some splashy Water-type Pokémon? You can grab a ticket once tickets go live on Friday, February 14, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. GMT! Tickets will be first come, first served. General admission tickets will be £14.40, and early access tickets will be £21.60. A £3.60 service fee will be added to each order (up to four tickets per order). All prices are inclusive of VAT. Early access ticket holders wi...

Trainers,

In appreciation of all the great Pokémon that we’ve befriended that were originally discovered in the Sinnoh region, we’re happy to announce a Sinnoh region celebration event! From Friday, February 7, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. to Monday, February 10, 2020, at 10:00 p.m. local time, Pokémon originally discovered in the Sinnoh region will be appearing more often in the wild and in raids.

All 7 km Eggs obtained during the event period will exclusively hatch certain Pokémon from the Sinnoh region, including Budew, Combee, Bronzor, Gible, Riolu, Hippopotas, and Mantyke. Event-specific Field Research tasks will reward you with encounters with Pokémon that were originally discovered in this beautiful region, as well as Sinnoh Stones. And last but not least, if you’re lucky, you might hatch a Shiny Riolu or a Shiny Hippopotas!

Glacial, Magnetic, and Mossy Lure Modules activated during this event will last one hour, and each time you open a Gift, you could receive up to two 7 km Eggs...

Trainers,

Did you know? Pokémon Day happens every year on February 27 because that’s when the first Pokémon video games were launched in Japan in 1996! In celebration of #PokemonDay, we invite you to take part in a very special event.

What’s more, Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution will be arriving on Netflix on February 27! To commemorate this special movie release, Armored Mewtwo will be returning to Pokémon GO, accompanied by some of the Clone Pokémon seen in the movie!

Pokémon Day celebration event

Date + Time

Tuesday, February 25, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Monday, March 2, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8)

Features

• Some Pokémon are here to party! Keep a lookout for Pikachu and Eevee wearing party hats appearing in the wild. Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle sporting the same festive look will be hatching from 7 km Eggs and appearing in one-star raids. There’s a chance that any of these partying Pokémon could be Shiny, too!

• Armored Mewtwo strikes back in five-star raids...

Trainers,

Thank you for all your efforts campaigning and voting for the Pokémon you wanted featured on February Community Day. We are pleased to announce that the winner is...

Rhyhorn!

Don’t forget! During Community Day, you can evolve Rhyhorn into Rhyperior during the event or up to two hours afterward for the exclusive attack Rock Wrecker. And if you’re lucky, you might encounter a Shiny Rhyhorn!

To evolve a Rhydon (Rhyhorn’s evolved form) into Rhyperior, you will need 100 Rhyhorn Candy and a Sinnoh Stone. From Saturday, February 22, at 12:00 a.m. to Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. local time, you’ll be able to earn two Sinnoh Stones per set of regular- or premium- track GO Battle League battles completed, regardless of whether you win or lose! With the limit of five sets of GO Battle League battles each day—or 25 battles in the GO Battle League total—Trainers have the opportunity to obtain up to 10 Sinnoh Stones! For more information on the GO Battle League, check ...

Trainers,

Be still, your heart! Get ready for new Research Breakthrough encounters, Shadow Legendary Pokémon, and debuting Legendary Pokémon coming in February. This month will also feature events celebrating the Sinnoh region and Valentine’s Day, as well as entirely new kinds of events that we’re testing. There’s much to look forward to during this season of love.

1. Save Shadow Raikou from Giovanni!
2. February Research Breakthrough encounter: Woobat with bonus Woobat Candies!
3. Tornadus zooms into five-star raids!
4. A Sinnoh region celebration event
5. Pokémon GO Valentine’s Day Celebration 2020
6. Celebrate your love for friends with a special friendship weekend event
7. New experiments: Pokémon Spotlight Hour and Mystery Bonus Hour

Save Shadow Raikou from Giovanni!

If you’ve completed your most recent set of Team GO Rocket Special Research, then you’ll have access to February’s Team GO Rocket Special Research, A Professor's Work Is Never Done. This time, you’ll be tasked to defeat Team GO...

Trainers,

The GO Battle League is on its way! This week, the GO Battle League will start gradually becoming available to Trainers based on Trainer level. Game features are rolled out in this fashion in order to maintain stability. At launch, the first preseason of the GO Battle League will kick off. During preseason, we will continue to optimize and tune the feature so that Season 1 can be the best season that it can be!

What is preseason?

Preseason is a period of time before a season of competitive play begins. With your help, we will be able to optimize and balance the GO Battle League feature during this time. We will also be taking this time to learn about how the GO Battle League is being used in order to determine things like ideal length of seasons, rating thresholds for ranks, and more. In a previous blog post, we mentioned some details that have already been decided: Trainer Battles within the GO Battle League will rotate between the three leagues, you’ll be able to ra...

Trainers,

In this community note, we’d like to share some info about general Trainer Battle bug fixes and updates to attacks.

Updates to the combat system

We have one last batch of changes to Trainer Battles to set the stage for an exciting upcoming feature.

• Charged Attacks and switching will now be queued and activated at the end of the current Fast Attack and won’t be overridden by any following Fast Attacks.
• Certain visual bugs in battles have been fixed.

Updates to existing attacks in Pokémon GO

There have been updates to the following existing attacks in Pokémon GO.

• Megahorn - This Bug-type Charged Attack now deals more damage.
• Volt Switch - This Electric-type Fast Attack now activates and generates energy more quickly.

Attacks new to Pokémon GO

Certain Pokémon will soon be able to learn attacks that hadn’t yet been seen in Pokémon GO!

• Flying Press - We hear this Fighting-type Charged Attack has cropped up in the world of Pokémon GO! However, we haven’t figured out which...

Trainers,

Community Day is a key piece of what makes Pokémon GO a unique gaming experience. It’s an event that encourages all Trainers to go out and play together one day a month, and we’ve been endlessly inspired by the impact it’s had on building local communities. To allow Community Day to live up to its name even more, we’re letting Trainers everywhere vote for what the next featured Community Day Pokémon will be.

We hope to take the lessons from this experiment and use them to make Community Day the best it can be, and we thank you for your patience. More info below.

1. Voting Timeline
2. February 2020 Community Day Pokémon Candidates
3. Voting-Day Field Research Tasks

Voting Timeline

Here is what you can expect in the coming weeks.

1. Announcement of the Community Day candidates: On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 (today), we announce the Pokémon in the running to be the featured Community Day Pokémon, what their event-exclusive attacks will be, and the Field Research tasks you will ...

Trainers,

The year of 2019 featured an incredible lineup of live events for Pokémon GO. From welcoming Trainers to three Pokémon GO Fests across three different continents to hosting our first-ever Safari Zones in Brazil, Singapore, and Canada—every year, we aim to go bigger and better than the last. In 2020, you can look forward to even more events in more locations! We’re pleased to announce the first live events of the year.

1. Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung City
2. Safari Zone St. Louis, Missouri, US
3. Safari Zone Liverpool, UK
4. Safari Zone Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US

Pokémon light up a special event during the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung City

Get ready to be dazzled by lanterns, music, and Pokémon alike! This special non-ticketed, city-wide event will take place during the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung City, Taiwan, from Thursday, February 6, to Sunday, February 9, 2020.

Pokémon that will be appearing include the Electric-type Pokémon Mareep and Electrike. V...

Trainers,

Happy Lunar New Year! The Pokémon GO Lunar New Year event is happening once again, spotlighting various red Pokémon and, in celebration of the Year of the Rat, a Limited Research event featuring Minccino, the Chinchilla Pokémon. Take a look at the details below.

Pokémon GO Lunar New Year Event

It’s time to welcome in the new lunar cycle with red Pokémon appearing more frequently in the wild, lucky bonuses, and the appearance of a Pokémon not previously found in Pokémon GO: Darumaka!

Date + Time

Friday, January 24, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Monday, February 3, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8)

Features

• Certain red Pokémon will be featured. Charmeleon, Vulpix, Parasect, Voltorb, Jynx, Magmar, Magikarp, Flareon, Slugma, Wurmple, Corphish, Kricketot, and Foongus will appear more frequently in the wild!
• Gyashaa! If you’re lucky, you might spot a Gyarados in the wild. Will you be lucky enough to encounter the coveted red Shiny Gyarados?
• Darumaka will hatch from 7 km Eggs. Som...

Trainers,

A Special Raid Weekend event is on its way! The Legendary Pokémon Latias and Latios will both be available in Raid Battles soon.

Date + Time

Friday, January 24, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Monday, January 27, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8)

Features

• The Legendary Pokémon Latias and Latios will be in five-star raids.

These Eon Pokémon are both Dragon and Psychic type, so it’ll be best to bring along other Dragon-type Pokémon, such as Rayquaza and Dialga. They are also weak to Ice-, Bug-, Ghost-, Dark-, and Fairy-type attacks, so some recommended Pokémon to round out your Raid Battle teams are Tyranitar, Togekiss, and Mamoswine.

You’ve got this, Trainers—let’s GO!

—The Pokémon GO team

Trainers,

Trade Evolution has long been an iconic mechanic in the main Pokémon series. We are excited to adapt this feature to Pokémon GO!

Trading certain Pokémon will result in no Candy cost to evolve them. More Pokémon originally discovered in the Unova region are also coming to Pokémon GO—and some of them will benefit from the addition of trade Evolution, too.

Trade Evolution

• How it works: Trade an eligible Pokémon to lower the Candy cost to evolve them.
• Which Pokémon can gain Evolution benefits from trading? Kadabra, Machoke, Graveler, and Haunter are some Pokémon that can now benefit from trade Evolution. If you received one of these Pokémon in a trade in the past—congratulations! That Pokémon will retroactively qualify for no Candy cost when you evolve it.
• Pokémon originally discovered in the Unova region that benefit from trade Evolution: Boldore, Gurdurr, Karrablast, and Shelmet are now appearing in Pokémon GO and will be eligible for trade Evolution benefits. And r...

Trainers,

Ready those Incubators! The Adventure Sync Hatchathon is back, and it’s the perfect time to get a leg up on your New Year’s resolutions. During the Adventure Sync Hatchathon, you can be rewarded with extra Stardust, Rare Candies, and a Unova Stone if you walk a certain distance. You can find Pokémon wearing party hats by hatching Eggs and encountering Pokémon in the wild, too.

Date + Time

From Thursday, January 2, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. to Thursday, January 16, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. PST (GMT −8)

Features

• You might be able to hatch a Pichu or Wurmple wearing a party hat from a 2 km Egg.
• You’ll have the chance to hatch Pichu wearing party hats from 7 km Eggs.
• In two-star raids, you’ll have the chance to challenge Raticate and Wobbuffet wearing party hats.
• In the wild, Pikachu wearing party hats will be available to catch.
• If you’re lucky, you might encounter Shiny Raticate, Pikachu, Pichu, Wobbuffet, and Wurmple—all of them wearing party hats!

Bonuses

• 2× Hatch Candy
• 2× Hatc...

Trainers,

As December’s last event, Pokémon GO Holidays 2019, wraps up, we set our eyes toward the new year on the horizon! As we ring in 2020, you can look forward to the following events and features.

1. More Team GO Rocket Special Research
2. January Research Breakthrough encounter: Lapras that know Ice Shard and Ice Beam
3. The egg-citing Adventure Sync Hatchathon is back
4. Heatran blazes back into raids
5. Unova nouveau in the new year

January Team GO Rocket Special Research

The fight against Team GO Rocket continues! Activate the new Special Research during the month of January to help Professor Willow and the team leaders take down this villainous group. This is your chance to fight Giovanni and save another Legendary Pokémon: Shadow Moltres.

Team GO Rocket never rests, Trainers, and neither can we! Be on the lookout for new Team GO Rocket Special Research from Professor Willow every month. For more information, please see our help center article.

January Research Breakthrough encou...

Trainers,

Thank you for sharing your feedback when it comes to Pokémon GO Community Day hours and how it impacts different regions. The safety and wellbeing of our Trainers is of the upmost importance, so moving forward we plan on testing Community Day hours that are based on the hemisphere that you reside in.

For January Community Day, the event times are as follows:

• Northern Hemisphere—Sunday, January 19, 2020, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in your local time zone
• Southern Hemisphere—Sunday, January 19, 2020, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in your local time zone

Please note that countries located on the equator line will be impacted by the split by hemisphere. We ask Trainers plan accordingly if they are impacted due to their location.

We look forward to your continued feedback and support of Community Day as we continue to experiment with times that work for all Trainers to participate in the fun. Thank you and see you in 2020!

—The Pokémon GO Team

Trainers,

Get ready to explore the world with your Buddy Pokémon! In the all-new Buddy Adventure feature, your buddy will be by your side in your Pokémon GO explorations like never before.

Buddy Adventure is an elevated bonding experience for Trainers and their buddies. You’ll get to know your Buddy Pokémon’s mood as you increase your Buddy Level by playing with your buddy, feeding your buddy treats, and battling and exploring with your buddy. In addition, swapping Buddy Pokémon no longer resets progress toward earning Candy. Like any great Pokémon Trainer, you’ll find that the world around you will become richer with Pokémon by your side as they grow with you and help you along your journey.

The Buddy Adventure feature set will roll out to Trainers around the world by 2020.

The Berry that blossomed into friendship

Kick off your buddy adventure by feeding your buddy Berries. This will increase your Buddy Level to Good Buddy, and you’ll see your buddy on the map, following...

Trainers,

The bond between Trainers and their Pokémon has been at the core of every part of the Pokémon franchise, from the main-series games to the anime and beyond. The partnership between a Pokémon and its Trainer is built on trust, and as with any great partnership, those involved grow together, play together, and explore together. In the new Buddy Adventure feature, Trainers worldwide will be able to experience what it’s really like to have a Pokémon exploring the world with them.

Collaborating with our partners like Best Buddies!

“Since launching Pokémon GO, this might be the most collaborative feature we have had with The Pokémon Company,” shared Ryuta Hiroi, the lead Niantic product manager on the project. “Even with your phone in your pocket, you’ll feel like your buddy is right beside you!”

Niantic tech artist Lena Verstappen added to the point about collaborating with our partners, mentioning that there was a deeply respectful way in which each and every Pokémon was ...

Trainers,

The year of 2019 has been incredible, and we can’t thank you enough for joining us on this adventure! From encountering Pokémon discovered in regions like Sinnoh and Unova to taking on Team GO Rocket and their infamous boss Giovanni, this year has brought so much to Pokémon GO that we can’t wait to see what happens in 2020! But before we move into a fresh new year, we wanted to revisit a few of our favorite memories.

What were your Pokémon GO highlights this year, Trainer? Reminisce with us on social media with #PokemonGO!

January

• Adventure Sync Hatchathon—We kicked off the year strong with an Adventure Sync Hatchathon, encouraging Trainers to get out and move!
• Safari Zone Porto Alegre—We had our first-ever Pokémon GO event in Latin America! Throughout the weekend, tens of thousands of Trainers visited the recently revitalized Guaíba riverbank in Porto Alegre.
• Pokémon originally discovered in the Sinnoh region emerge—Trainers were also able to catch Pokémon first ...

Update 8/25/2020: As the world changes in real time, so do the locations where Pokémon can appear around you. Locations where Pokémon can be found could change as often as every month, reflecting efforts by Trainers to explore the world around them and interact with the world of Pokémon GO.

- Originally posted Oct 2019

Trainers,

Over the last three and a half years, we’ve continued to evolve and enhance the Pokémon GO experience. We have launched an array of major feature updates and some smaller changes to help increase the quality of gameplay for many Trainers. While listening to community feedback, we look for ways to improve our game and strengthen the relationship that Trainers have with the world around them. Most recently, our focus has been dedicated to improving the experience of Trainers who live and play in areas of the world that may not have as many PokéStops or Pokémon to encounter as others.

Pokémon are now appearing in more locations worldwide

To ensure that all Train...