Good news for Pokemon fans: Pokemon Go’s Go Beyond update is now live. The promised raised level cap, XP booster, and surprising hidden bonuses hit us all at once, but there’s even more to the update as Niantic’s Seasons are rolling out.
Changes include the northern hemisphere having former (mostly) egg-exclusive pokemon Alola Sandshrew and Alola Vulpix spawning in the wild, among other ice types. Southern hemisphere folks will see the firey Darumaka, Burmy, and Shuckle. Both chunks of the world also get a different Deerling form (which has four forms, each corresponding to a season).
We also have some information on the upcoming community days, future events, and PvP season 6. While there have been rumors that Charmander, Squirtle, and other 2018 Community Day pokemon wouldn’t be featured, Niantic announced this week that the 2020 community day will only be spawning additional 2019-2020 featured pokemon. Whether or not we’ll be able to evolve 2018 pokemon for their unique abilities hasn’t been addressed. The events will be on December 12th and 13th regardless, with more news coming in the days ahead. We do know that Mega Abomasnow should be out for the season sometime soon, and there’s a rumor that Mr. Rime may be on his way over soon.
On the PvP front, the new ranks certainly have given Niantic new ways to reward players. Ranks have been expanded from 10 to 24, but losses don’t prevent a drop in your rank until after rank 20. Until then, ranks grant things like the Gen 6 starters, pikalibre, and potential encounters with whatever the current tier 5 legendary is. While that’s admittedly more of a climb than before, the longer season means you can hold that rank for a longer period of time. What we see from data miners isn’t exactly fantastic in terms of catchable pokemon, but the Elite TM rewards have me positively hungry. We’ll have to see how this all reflects on the game as we get more time with the changes.
Update: And now we have news on Gen 6 pokemon both in the wild and in eggs starting December 2. Don’t worry though, you can buy even more Pokemon storage right now to prepare!
