Pokémon GO unveils monthly Community Day events, starting January 20 with Pikachu

Developer Niantic Labs on Friday announced Community Day, a new series of monthly worldwide events with bonuses in the popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO.

These events give trainers an opportunity to meet up at their local parks and earn bonuses.

There will be one event per month featuring a special Pokémon that will appear frequently around the world for just a few hours. When caught during the event, the critter will know an exclusive move. Other bonuses during the event include increased XP or Stardust and Lure Modules (activated during the event and lasting for three hours).

The first Community Day will be held on January 20, 2018, featuring Pikachu.

“Explore your local parks with family and friends to catch Pikachu that know the exclusive event move Surf,” the blog post reads. “While you’re out exploring your local parks and making new friends, you’ll also earn double XP during event hours.”

Here are event hours in various regions:

  • Asia-Pacific: January 20 from 12pm to 3pm JST (GMT +9)
  • Europe, the Middle East, Africa & India: January 20 from 10am to 1pm UTC (GMT +0)
  • Americas and Greenland: January 20 from 11am to 2pm PST (GMT -8)

In December, the game was updated with improved responsiveness and a new AR+ encounter mode for trainers on ARKit-enabled iOS devices running iOS 11 or later.

Niantic said earlier this week that an upcoming update will remove existing support for devices that are incompatible with iOS 11, such as iPhone 5/5c and older iPad models.

This change will take effect on February 28, 2018.

Pokémon GO is a free download from App Store.