Niantic plans a huge Pokémon GO event for summer 2017, and the community expects legendary monsters and raids.
In summer 2016, there was a huge hype worldwide when the augmented reality game Pokémon GO was released. Now, summer 2017 is apparently supposed to be something very special for the developers and the community, as a huge summer event is planned. Niantic Japan confirmed the event in an interview, stating that trainers can look forward to it.
Summer Event 2017 could bring raids
As reported by PokémonGOHub, Niantic confirmed in an interview with the Japanese website k-tai.watch that a huge event is planned for summer 2017. This event is supposed to be something that has never been seen before. The mechanics needed for this event are still under development. They did not reveal what features are involved. However, there are rumors in the community that it will involve the announced raids .
PokémonGOHub has translated the interview. In summary, there are the following pieces of information from the conversation:
- A huge event is set to take place this summer. The features for it are currently still being developed.
- PvP, trading, and raids are currently in development. However, there are no release dates for these features yet.
- Other small events like the Water Festival are expected to be activated more frequently throughout the year.
- Niantic is working on building a partnership program with many cities that will be helpful for future large events and gatherings, similar to the Lapras event in the Fukushima region.
The translation of the interview does not make it entirely clear whether the event will take place worldwide or be limited to Japan. PokémonGOHub speculates that the mentioned event will be globally available. However, as of now, there is no evidence for this.
Why we are hoping for legendary Pokémon
The community believes that this big event will combine the raid function with the hunt for legendary Pokémon. Whether this event will actually involve these features has not been confirmed by Niantic yet. There are various reasons that make raids and legendary monsters plausible:
- John Hanke, the head of Niantic, told Wired that legendary Pokémon like Mewtwo and Mew are expected to appear in 2017.
- The developers officially confirm that there will still be spring cooperative gameplay.
- In the code of the latest update of Pokémon GO, there are phrases indicating that raids could soon be a feature in Pokémon GO (“There’s a raid about to start near you!”).
The Pokémon GO experts expect that Niantic will activate the cooperative gameplay (likely raids) this spring. This feature will then be thoroughly tested and improved until it is finally used at a big event, possibly featuring legendary Pokémon.
As soon as there is more information about this event, we will report on it.
The Easter event in Pokémon GO is currently active. You can only receive these rare Pokémon from the 2KM eggs during this time
