With updates, activities, events, and more coming out every single week in Pokémon GO, we thought it was about time to take a look at this week, and how it stacks up with what we have seen in previous years. “This Week in Pokemon GO History” is a series on GO Hub that takes a look at this calendar week throughout 2016, 2017 and 2018.
This week we will be taking a look at week 43 of this year, which takes into account October 22nd to October 28th.
Week 43 of 2018
This week of 2018 brought the eagerly anticipated Halloween event, a special day to celebrate a special Pokémon, and a few more surprising twist.
Halloween 2018 Event
To get into the Halloween spirit, Drifloon and Stunky would start to appear in the wild along with other Ghost and Dark type Pokémon. To give Trainers extra incentive to go out and catch them, Drifloon’s Shiny Variation would also be available. Along with this, Spiritomb would make its appearance in the Special Research System and Giratina would making its diabolical appearance in Tier 5 Raid Battles.
Link to original release notes
Bidoof Day
Out of seemingly nowhere, Niantic took twitter by storm as they both announced and activated Pokémon GO’s first Pokémon Apprecciation Day, featuring Bidoof. This special one-day event included finding some fun facts about Bidoof on twitter, and being inspired to go out and take AR Photographs of Bidoof in its natural habitat.
Melmetal Introduced
Following the mystery of Meltan, Pokémon GO officially introduced us to Melmetal, Meltan’s evolution. What is so special about it? This implies that Meltan will be the first ever Mythical Pokémon to be able to evolve, not only this, but with its introduction came the announcement of a brand new move for it, Double Iron Bash.
Game Data Changes
Having been Announced earlier in the week, Chrales discovered new images for the Adventure Sync function coming to Pokémon GO soon. This revealed that Trainers would require a google account, and that the Adventure Sync would record calories, steps, candies, and egg counts.
Week 43 of 2017
Is it 2016 again? All joking aside, this week of 2017 gave us a few goodies, although nothing huge, it brought Trainers more than enough fun.
Mini-News
With the Halloween event going on, Shiny variations were released as the days progressed, this time around, Shiny Duskull and Shiny Sableye were released. Along with this, Niantic released an issue with spawn points and even added some brand new ones. Finally, Niantic fixed an issue where Pokéstops would only drop two items.
Week 43 of 2016
Previous weeks of 2016 kept the running joke of minor text fixes, but this time around would be different, this time around, Pokémon GO would see an actual event.
Halloween 2016 Event
Pokémon GO’s first official event, Halloween 2016 didn’t do much except increase spawns, this was before Pokémon GO really got into the swing of things, so at this point the only thing this event provided was an increase in the Gastly, Drowzee, and Zubat spawns, with additional Cubone, Marowak, and Meowth spawns. Besides this, catches would provide 2x the amount of candy.
Game Data Changes
The one thing that popped up this week that got everyone’s attention was the mention of “Quest”, these quest however would not be the first indications of the Research System, but in fact referring to the daily bonuses Trainers receive when catching their first Pokémon of the day or spinning their first Pokéstop of the day.
Final Notes
Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, everything around this time of year was Halloween, as a Halloween kind of guy, it pleases me to see that Niantic still pushes IRL events just as much as the ones they come up with, which nowadays, is rampant throughout the game. This begs the question however, how will Niantic keep up with the demand around the holiday season?
Do us a favor, tell us about this week in your own Pokémon GO history, what was your best catch this week? How about your best catch this same week of 2017? How about from 2016? How has your Pokémon journey evolved since then? Be sure to tell us in the comments below.
Curious to see how this week stacks up compared to last week? Take a look at Week 42 of Pokémon GO History here.
Have fun, and stay safe, Trainers!
