'Pokemon Go' Launches Valentine's Day Event, Complete With Special Valentine-Themed Pokemon

Pokemon Go's Valentine's Day event is officially underway.

The popular mobile game officially launched its Valentine's Day event, which will give players increased opportunities to catch several pink Pokemon. The event will cause Pokemon like Clefairy, Hoppip, and Luvdisc to appear much more frequently in the wild. In addition, certain Pink Pokemon (such as Smoochum) will appear in 7 KM eggs more frequently. To help attract these pink Pokemon to trainers, Lure Modules will also remain active for six hours for the duration of the event. Finally, players will get twice as much candies when they catch Pokemon, a bonus that stacks with Pinap Berries for potentially four times as much candies.

Pokemon like Chansey and Porygon will also appear as Raid Bosses to give players new challenges. Both have their own uses - Chansey can evolve into one of the game's top defenders while Porygon requires 125 candies to evolve into its final PorygonZ form.

In addition to all of those perks, Pokemon Go also added a special Spinda variant with a heart-shaped pattern on its forehead. Spinda can only be encountered by completing certain Field Research tasks. It's unclear whether this Spinda is here to stay, or if it will get swapped out for a different kind of Spinda when the event ends. Players can find Spinda by completing the "Complete 5 Great Throws in a Row" Field Research task.

As players haven't found a Shiny Pokemon yet, we're assuming that Smoochum and its evolved form Jynx will be getting a Shiny variant to celebrate the event. We'll provide more information on which Pokemon (if any) receives a Shiny version once we receive confirmation.

The event runs from today through February 21st at 1 PM.