Pokemon Go Announces Third Anniversary Event

Pokemon Go is celebrating its third anniversary with some brand new Shiny Pokemon and some big bonuses. Today marks the third anniversary of the launch of Pokemon Go. The game broke multiple records and had a massive userbase when it first launched, and it still enjoys periodic runs to the top of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store’s best-selling chart. To celebrate the game’s continued success, Pokemon Go will be holding an anniversary event starting on June 28th at 1 PM. The event will last for the rest of the summer, with special raid bonuses, decreased Stardust rewards and “Jump-Start” Research designed to help players get caught up with the game.

As part of the anniversary event, Pokemon Go will add Shiny variants of various Alolan Pokemon. Players will have a chance of encountering Shiny versions of Alolan Rattata, Alolan Sandshrew, Alolan Vulpix, Alolan Diglett, Alolan Meowth, Alolan Geodude, Alolan Grimer, and Alolan Exeggutor. Pokemon Go will also bring back the costumed Party Hat Pikachu, but it will only appear once per day when players take a photo using the GO Snapshot feature.

Bonuses added for the Anniversary event includes a special Jump-Start Special Research quest. The research will help players who put down Pokemon Go get caught up by giving them “helpful rewards” of some kind. Players will need to be at level 10 or higher to participate in the Special Research quest. Players will also get additional Premier Balls in raids when they completed them faster, and will be able to make trades with a 25% discount until September 2nd.

We’ll also note that the announcement of the Anniversary event came with a new piece of promotional art that featured the “Gen 5” Starters Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott. That’s a very obvious tease that we’ll be getting some new Pokemon added to the game in the not so distant future.