While going through some posts earlier, I saw the very first Christmas event in Pokemon Go in 2016. We were all excited about that specific event and if you remember there were two pair events, which overlap over the course of two weeks.
The first event started from December 25 to January 3, with the following:
- PokeStops gave out a single-use Incubator every day, once a day.
- New eggs with a greater chance of hatching Gen 2 Pokemon that Niantic introduced into the game earlier that month in 2016.
- Santa Hat Pikachu stayed longer than the 29 when he was supposed to disappear initially. Pikachu spawn rate was also increased.
The second event started from December 30 to January 8, with the following:
- The original starters, Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Charmander and their evolutions appeared more frequently throughout the world.
- Lures lasted sixty minutes instead of thirty.
Unfortunately, there was no x2 Candy, x2 XP or x2 Stardust the last Christmas, but I really hope to see at least “one combo” of these rewards during this year’s Pokemon Go Christmas event.
We have few reasons why we believe this Christmas “Winter Holiday” Event will give us additional Stardust bonuses for every Pokemon caught.
The weather bonus is not tied to a specific type of Pokemon. It gives benefits to everyone who is playing because they will get bonuses that are based on the weather they are playing at that moment. This is excellent because Niantic can show off the new weather feature to the ones who go to the game only when there is an event, and give us our most precious thing, extra Stardust,
This is a smart move because by debuting the new Star Piece items during the bonus period, the players will feel the need to spend money or coins to buy them and increase their Stardust bonus.
This is a version of the Lucky Egg during the Double XP events. It is obvious that Niantic will benefit by selling Star Pieces, and we, the players, again, get the thing we most want – extra Stardust.
We think that Delibird will debut in this event. This Pokemon will probably be much like Farfetch’d and Kangashkan during the recent Double XP event. Our advice is to keep your coins and wait to see what the holidays will bring.
Today, Niantic developer Matt Slemon made an interview with The Express, saying,
The most important things for us when it comes to the Weather feature is that we enforce it is an AR feature. This isn’t something we want to make up, so we don’t want to virtualize snow for instance, in Los Angeles.
We want the weather (in Pokemon Go) to reflect what the weather’s like outside.
That being said, if there are Pokemon that might spawn more often in the snow, you might still see them through events showing up because of the event, rather than because it’s snowing outside.
For last, Niantic have confirmed that there will be new fun things coming for this year’s Pokemon Go Christmas event, and they want to make this event even better than the last one. I really hope to see more than just another special spawn and Pikachu with a hat event.
