New content has been announced for the first major event of the year in Pokémon GO. However, the announcement hasn’t generated much excitement in the community.
What kind of event is this? The GO Tour is one of the 3 major events that take place every year in Pokémon GO. The event has both a local and a global version. The local event will be held from February 20 to 22, 2026, in Tainan and Los Angeles, while the global variant will take place the following weekend on February 28 and March 1, 2026.
For the global version, which all trainers worldwide can participate in, regardless of whether they have a paid ticket, new content has now been revealed. However, this hasn’t created much of a stir in the community.
Shinies for everyone, research for some
Increased Shiny chance: It has already been announced in the past that during the event, the Shiny chance for costumed Pikachu, Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakiein the wild will be increased.
Newly added is an increased Shiny chance for Honedge when you defeat it in raids, as well as an increased chance for Shinies from 2- and 10-km eggs. This chance is active for all players, regardless of ticket status.
In the past, the contents of the eggs have been announced that will now have an increased Shiny chance. Here are the following monsters:
2-km eggs:
- Larvitar
- Bagon
- Beldum
- Gible
10-km eggs:
- Kangashkan
- Heracross
- Hawlucha
- Klefki
It has already been announced in the past that the chance for the two Shinies Hawlucha and Klefki will be increased.
Special Research: If you have purchased the ticket for the event, you will receive a special research task where you must choose between the X and Y versions.
The following research contents have now been revealed:
X-version:
- Encounter with Xerneas* with a special background inspired by Pokémon X
- Chance for event field research with Icognito X*
Y-version:
- Encounter with Yveltal* with a special background inspired by Pokémon Y
- Chance for event field research with Icognito Y*
All monsters from the special research can also be found as Shiny (*).
Additional content: Starting February 23, 2026, the start of the “Way to Kalos” event, you can acquire the Xerneas headpiece and the Yveltal coat for your avatar in the in-game shop.
Ticket holders can also receive the “Shiny Diancie T-shirt” as part of a masterwork research task included with the ticket.
From Friday, February 20, 2026, to Sunday, March 1, 2026, you can also receive event stickers at PokéStops and from gifts.
Additionally, at the GO Tour 2026, music by Junichi Masuda, the composer of the main series Pokémon games, will play on the map, in capturing screens, and during raids.
What does the community say about it? Since the announcement of new content brings relatively few new informational tidbits and additionally promotes ticket sales for the GO Tour, the community suspects a different intention behind the announcement.
Some comments on this on Reddit include:
- “There’s nothing new, but they mention five times that tickets are still available and that you can still buy them, as everyone can see that this tour isn’t even halfway done,” writes Daddyy-Anime.
- “Sounds like they are begging for ticket sales. Maybe they should have planned a better event,” says phillypokego.
- “Wow, tickets are still available at this late stage, and that makes total sense,” remarks mistsoalar.
- “At this point, they’re just making fun of us,” comments hitvdl.
While the GO Tour marks the grand finale of the current month, there are still various events, spotlight hours, and raids available in the game until then. If you want to get an overview, feel free to check out our summary with all events in February 2026 in Pokémon GO.
