It’s almost time, Pokemon Go trainers: Go Fest 2025 arrives June 28th to 29th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time each day, and as usual, Massively on the Go is here to help… but not just with Go Fest. This year, there’s a pre-Fest event with a unique tie-in to the big show: a Golden Bottle Cap. It is a premium item in a pack for $20 USD, but main game players know this item can max out the crumbiest ‘mon and turn them into statistically perfect monsters, though it’s being linked with Hyper Training, so it ends up being a bit of a quest.
This is the first post-Niantic Go Fest with the POGO team under Scopely’s ownership, and so far, it isn’t looking too shabby. Whether or not you feel it’ll be worth the value, though, remains to be seen, so let me help you figure that out and prep for it, whether you attend the free or paid version.
GO Fest Global Details 🌍
All Flabébé forms available globally 🌸
Klefki, Pachirisu, Skiddo, and Torkoal available for ticket holders 🎟️
Crowned Form debut 👑
Volcanion in paid research 🔥💧More info:https://t.co/wEGWMo8IIL pic.twitter.com/VHkNXLRtNF
— G47IX (@g47ix) June 3, 2025
Ticket value: main show vs. pre-show
As always, your mileage may vary. I’m a POGO vet who belongs in various groups, who has gained and lost friends throughout the years and made many, many lucky trades, but who doesn’t PvP much, so the wild spawns aren’t thrilling me. Most of the regionals are repeats for me. My space is low, so Unowns are more of a turn off than a tune-in. All that said, I am still somewhat excited about Go Fest 2025!
Let’s get a few hard numbers down here first. For premium items, we’ll say all incubators are the same and valued at roughly $1 tops, thanks to frequent sales that put them around there or (much) lower. Raid passes are a bit easier, rounded up to $0.84 as you can buy three for $2.50 without any major sales. Lucky eggs, Lures, Star Pieces, and the like are generally bonus items thrown in to sweeten deals or quests. Even as someone who basically only pays for the major yearly events, like Go Fest, I’m very good on these, so I’m valuing them at next to nothing.
From here, it’ll get messy. For example, as you can see above, ticket holders get six special trades a day. It’s hard to put a value on that, but eight extra raid passes a day? That’s $6.72 for one day or $13.44 total. That’s already nearly the $15 entry fee. Then there’s the fact that unless you live in France, Klefki is a regional that normally will require at least a drive if you live in Europe (or more likely a plane ride or a friend who travels). To note, Klefki’s been spoted in a trailer for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, so that may be a reason it’s being included.
Volcanion is only for ticket holders, but it’s honestly not looking great for raids, and it’s just about decent for PvP, though we should point out that our favorite PvP analyst, JRE, noted that the Heroic Dog Duo is looking very good for PvP. I’m noting this as ticket holders also get a branching quest to choose between the two. They are basically an upgrade to last year’s Duskmane Necrozma in raids, plus they will be fairly useful in Max battles. Oh, there’s also Skiddo being released via incense for ticket holders, but that’s just a collector ‘mon.
By comparison, non-ticket holders basically get all the Flabebe variants and access to more Frigibax to prepare for its inevitable Community Day. There are some grey areas we’ll talk about below, but honestly, there’s certainly much more value for ticket holders this year, at least in terms of power for those who are comfortable spending roughly the cost of a movie ticket.
🔧 Hyper Training is coming to Pokémon GO during Ancients Recovered!
Max out your Pokémon’s stats using the rare Gold Bottle Cap 🧢✨#PokemonGO pic.twitter.com/SllQLpnoSe— G47IX (@g47ix) June 16, 2025
Now let’s compare that with what we know of the Ancients Recovered pass. We’re going to ignore the cost of the Golden Bottle Cap briefly to look at the other stuff. Costumes usually cost about $5 each, and with two masks, that’s about $10, if you like them. Again, the other items, like incense and lures, are of dubious “premium” value, so we’re ignoring those. But the other bonuses related to hatching and raids are interesting, even if a bit hard to pin down their exact cash value.
The bonuses above in gold are pretty similar to the egg enthusiast and raid lover add-ons available at the LA Unova Tour earlier this year. I’ve put together a quick comparison chart to help sort through this.
| LA Tour Add-ons (combined) | Deluxe Go Fest 2025 Go Pass | |
| Cost | $30 | $20 |
| Extra raid passes | 48 (16 per day for 3 days) | 7 (1 per day for 7 days) |
| XP from raids | 5k | 5k |
| Extra raid candy | 6 | 3 |
| Extra raid XL candy | 3 | 1 |
| Hatch distance bonus | 1/4 | 1/2 |
| Hatch xp bonus | 3x | 2x |
| Hatch candy | 3x | 2x |
| Hatch dust bonus | 3x | 2x |
| Extra 10k eggs? | Yes | No |
| Requires unlocks? | Yes | No |
For example, the half hatch distance for seven days on the Go Pass is clearly better than three days at quarter hatch rate, but it also assumes you can play as long/hard as you did for the Tour. I doubt anyone will have a full week off for this, plus the hatch contents just aren’t the same until you get to Go Fest Weekend, and we don’t even know them yet (though they will most likely involve at least one regional hatch).
Depending on how fast you can unlock the bonuses, they may be negligible. The extra XL candy sounds good in theory, but it’s only if you unlock it soon enough, and it depends on what you’re raiding. The Regis, which take up the bulk of the 7-day ticket, are of dubious value, especially outside of PvP. Regigigas is looking good these days, but that’s the Shadow version (which we can’t raid during this period) and it depends on the Hidden Power move it randomly inherits.
In short, from what we do know, the Deluxe Go Pass doesn’t seem to have quite the same punch if you leave out the Golden Bottle Cap. That’s where things get really interesting, especially if you’re already spending a lot on the game.
A guaranteed 100% perfect pokemon could save you a lot of raid passes. Your odds are usually 1/126 so if you’re raiding specifically for a perfect, you’re done. The Deluxe Pass is worth it. You do miss out on all that xp, (XL) candy, and other bonuses, but when it comes to raiding, I think it’s fair to say that most of us are chasing perfects. The value shoots up even higher for those chasing lucky hundos, at 1/4,320.
While some people argue that the bottle cap, which unlocks tasks to max out the stats on any pokemon, is best used on mythical pokemon, I will remind readers that most mythicals are collector’s items and not often raid/pvp relevant. Obviously people are free to power up what they wish, but I do think that using the cap as a raid pass shortcut (or bandaid, if you wish to enjoy the weekend and simply power up whatever you feel you missed out on) makes the most sense.
The cap itself only lasts until July 6th, so you only have about two weeks to make up your mind, and then you have one year to complete tasks. It seems best to focus on something that will immediately help you, and as the Hero Dogs work in both normal and Max raids, they seem like the best immediate candidates. of the two, I’d go with Zamazenta because it tends to top the PvE charts, plus when its Shield Max ability is maxed, it starts battles with one Shield, a unique and useful ability.
6/27 Update: We now have a closer look at some bottle cap tasks. Remember, your hyper-training target must be your buddy during this time.
If you’re already spending on the game, you’re probably already getting both the event ticket and the Deluxe Go Pass. If you have to choose only one, I’d go with the event ticket. But if you’re someone with limited time, puts a lot of value in perfect pokemon (especially shinies), and/or hits Master League with the intent of being the very best, like no one ever was, grab the Deluxe version too.
But if you’re super casual, not a big collector, or debating on whether or not to keep playing the game, skip the ticket. You may still want to play and maybe get one of the regionals as a special trade from someone who did buy the ticket. As we’ll discuss below, they aren’t major, but at least they’re fun to fill your pokedex with.
High-value targets
This year, the target options for wild spawns seem thin. Last year wasn’t great, but this year, yikes. As such, I’ve simply edited some of Galix’s work that we usually promote to highlight what’s interesting via the white diamonds around their portraits, and it’s all pretty brief.
For veteran players who don’t frequently globe trot, all the Flabebe variants but white (a global rare variant) being available is nice. Normally they’re in different countries, but during this event you can focus on the color(s) you want the most. They’re not top raid options, but they’re useful in some PvP formats and in gym defense. They’re nice for new players too, but vets are probably yawning at the above image.
Speaking of gym defense, Chansey in the wild means more potential XL candy to power up your defenders or your Gmax tank/healers. It’s a great ‘mon, though if you played its Community Day and more, you’re probably still pretty good on resources here. Same goes for Goomy except it just has some limited PvP use, though there is a Hisui version so maybe grab a spare good one in case we can ever evolve it.
Torkoal, Skiddo, Pachirusu, and Klefki also should excite veteran trainers. They’re all normally regionals aside from Skiddo, which was kiiind of a regional for certain events, but this is its global release. None are really useful though, so don’t worry too much, though as I mentioned above, Klefki at the least has been spotted in a Z-A trailer, so you never know if they’ll get an evolution or something soon.
New players or those with raid team gaps should look for Popplio, Chespin, Larvitar, Deino, Swinub and possibly Frigibax. Again, that last one will get a Community Day eventually, so you may want to hold off evolving your best one. In fact, of them, I’d only recommend evolving your best Swinubs, as the others have Community Day moves that make them highly viable for new players in raids.
Somewhat related, some pokemon will get their CD moves when evolved during the event: Metagross (Meteor Mash), Conkeldurr (Brutal Swing), Feraligatr (Hydro Cannon), Accelgor (Energy Ball), Escavalier (Razor Shell), Blissey (Wild Charge), Dusknoir (Shadowball). Notice how I didn’t bold all the ‘mon there? That’s because some of them (in fact, the best ones) aren’t capturable during the event, unless Scopely’s Pokemon GO team announces otherwise closer to the event date, which could happen, so stay tuned. New players and those who have Dmax variants should evolve their Beldums in particular, though Conkeldurr and Feraligatr are useful enough too, in both raids and PvP (though less so in raids for veteran players).
6/27 Update: There are reports that other pokemon are receiving CD/legacy moves too, like Brutal Swing Hydreigon and Stone Edge Machamp. We’ll update this as we learn more.
6/29 Update: We now have a full list thanks to reddit. As one newbie I know put it, for raids, it’s basically just about Tyranitar. Chesnaught is fine for new players, as is Primarina, but the latter is about to be replaced at the end of the month, so it’s hard to be excited.
Aside from those, you have Fletchling, which evolves into a fun/mean PvP option, Carbink because it ranks decently in Great League, Morelull for the bonus stardust, Galarian Farfetch’d because it’s uncommon and related to the regional Kanto variant, Jangmo-o in case you didn’t get a good enough one during the Community Day event this month, not that it’s super useful.
And that’s it, again, barring any late announcements from the Scopely POGO team, specifically in terms of egg hatching. We don’t know what they’ll have, but unless you plan on using a lot of incubators or coordinating a mass hatch, I’d burn through everything but 2k eggs so you can more easily hatch through old junk to get to the new event eggs, whatever they end up being.
Raid options
Aside from maybe picking up a Falinks dressed as a train from a 3-star raid, Crownded Zacian and Crowned Zamazenta are what the event is really all about. Ticket holders will probably choose which one to pursue as a bonus, but we don’t have details on those yet. In terms of choosing the “better” one, I’d lean towards Zamazenta. Zacian is a bit better in PvP and deals a bit more damage, but Zamazenta has that unique Gmax ability while still being overall comparable to Zacian.
It may seem like slim pickings, but this should help prevent players from feeling overwhelmed, which should hopefully ensure they can breath enough to enjoy the event.
Mega picks
Sadly, there’s no Fairy/Fighting type Mega that will help you get bonus XL candy for Zacian and Zamazenta, but there is a Fairy/Dragon type that can help generate candy and XP from Zacian, Klefki, Morelull, Carbink, the Flabebes, and all the various dragons spawning during this event: Mega Altaria.
Mega Lopunny can help get that Zama-candy bonus, plus some extra Chansey, Jangomo-o, and G Farfetch’d candy, or if you don’t care about Chansey, try Mega Heracross if you like the Bugs or Mega Gallade or Mega Medicham for Ralts and other part Psychic types.
If you’re not raiding a lot, you could also go with Primal Groudon, as it’ll help get candy for Torkoal and Skiddo in addition to myriad other not-so-useful ‘mon, but… yeah, probably better to go with one of the above options.
6/24 Update: The habitat time update reinforced that Zamazenta and Zacian will be exclusive to certain days, but as you may notice, the pokemon fitting their themes have their wild spawns kind of switched (i.e. Galarian Farfetch’d, a Fighting type, spawns on Zacian day, when you want a Fairy type). The above remains valid, but if you’re raiding all day, I’d put value on doing one of the Fighting Megas on Saturday for Zama and Mega Altaria (or other Fairy Mega) on Sunday for Zacian.
While communication has gotten a bit better with the Scopely move, the old team still has some of its old quirks, and releasing last-minute information is part of that. So, as usual, when new information trickles in, we’ll update our guide and give you more tips. As it is, it’s probably best to find a decent place with lots of people to raid with, bathrooms, an easy Route, plenty of spawns and Stops, and of course, accessibility for you and your friends/preferred trainers.
Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
