Pokémon Go celebrates its 1-year anniversary

Pokémon GO, probably the best-known AR app, is celebrating its first anniversary. The developers, Niantic, are celebrating with new promotions and an XXL update.

It has now been a whole year since developer Niantic turned the world upside down with Pokémon GO at the beginning of July 2016. The developer has recorded a whopping 750 million downloads of the free augmented reality adventure to date. The studio is now using both of these milestones as an opportunity to celebrate and shake up the world of the gaming community with exciting activities.

In the coming months, both in-game events and real-life celebrations will honour the game's success.

Pokémon Go Festival: The tasks

Although the big fan festival will take place in Chicago on 22 July, players worldwide can take part to unlock a mystery challenge.
Participating players should catch as many Pokémon as possible in that time to extend the duration of bonuses unlocked by event participants in Chicago. To catch many Pokémon in a short time, it is a good idea to stay in areas with many Pokéstops or nests. Lock Modules or Smoke Items are also useful. The following applies: The more Pokémon you catch worldwide, the longer the bonuses last - a bronze medal means a bonus extension of 24 hours, a silver medal 48 hours. A gold medal unlocks the Mystery Challenge, which, however, only applies to players in Grant Park in Chicago. However, other players still have advantages, because if this Mystery Challenge is completed by players in Chicago, an additional bonus is supposed to be unlocked all over the world. The speculation is that this could be a legendary Pokémon.

Pokémon also goes on safari

In addition to the festival, several European events are planned between 5 August and 16 September, during which Pokémon that are actually native to other regions can be caught in the so-called Safari Zones.

Niantic promises three big updates for 2017

Just in time for the birthday, there is also the biggest update to date with many innovations. The colourful augmented reality adventure provided eager monster hunters with 80 new creatures. If Niantic boss John Hanke has his way, however, this was only the prelude to a whole year of exciting innovations. At the Mobile World Congress 2017, the company boss gave an outlook on the future of "Pokémon GO" and, according to a media report, explained that the latest expansion was just one of a total of four major updates that the company has planned for this year.

Source: Computerbild / g247.c