Pokémon GO celebrates the start of the Year of the Dragon starting Monday next week with the Dragons Unleashed event

Pokémon GO is celebrating the start of the Year of the Dragon next week with a special celebration event, Lunar New Year: Dragons Unleashed, to run from Monday February 5th at 10:00am local time, through to February 11th at 8:00pm. Drampa, the Placid Pokémon, will be making its Pokémon GO debut as part of this event.

Event Bonuses and Activities
The following event bonuses will be active during the event period:

• Increased chance for Lucky Pokémon in trades
• Increased chance to become Lucky Friends
• Additional Candy for successfully catching Pokémon with Nice Throws, Great Throws, and Excellent Throws
• Increased chance for Trainers level 31 and up to receive Candy XL for successfully catching Pokémon with Nice Throws, Great Throws, and Excellent Throws

Global Challenge: Dragons Unleashed
A Global Challenge will be taking place throughout the event, in which Trainers around the world will need to work together to throw a combined 1,000 million Nice Throws. If trainers manage to achieve this milestone, the following special bonuses will be unlocked for all Trainers to enjoy for the remainder of the event:

• Festive fireworks will light up the skies
• Trainers will be able to evolve certain Pokémon during the event to get a Pokémon that knows a featured attack. The exact Pokémon have yet to be announced, but will include 2 Ground-types, a Fairy-type, a Dragon-type, and a Normal-type.
• 7 additional Pokémon will be added to wild encounters. The exact Pokémon are yet to be announced, though 6 of these 7 will be available in their Shiny variants.
• 1 additional Pokémon each will be added to One-Star and Three-Star Raids. The Pokémon added to Three-Star Raids will have the possibility of appearing in its Shiny variant.

Paid Timed Research
Trainers will be able to purchase access to event-exclusive Timed Research from the in-game store for US$2.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in each local currency). Completing these tasks will award Trainers with Stardust, XP, 2 Lucky Eggs, and Encounters with event-themed Pokémon (see below). The tasks associated with this Timed Research must be completed and their rewards must be claimed before February 11th at 8:00pm local time.

As usual, tickets opening access to this Paid Timed Research can also be gifted to any friend with a Friendship level of Great Friends or higher.

Pokémon Encounters
All Pokémon listed below with a ⁂ next to their name can also be encountered in their Shiny variants.

Wild encounters
The following Pokémon will appear more frequently in the wild during this event:

• Magikarp ⁂
• Dratini ⁂
• Shuckle ⁂
• Fennekin ⁂
• Skrelp ⁂
• Noibat ⁂
• Jangmo-o

Raids
The following Pokémon will appear in raids during this event:

• One-Star Raids
  • Dratini ⁂
  • Deino ⁂
  • Goomy ⁂
• Three-Star Raids
  • Druddigon ⁂
  • Turtonator ⁂
  • Drampa ⁂

Field Research Task Encounters
Completing event-themed Field Research tasks will award Trainers with encounters with the following Pokémon:

• Dratini ⁂
• Trapinch ⁂
• Swablu ⁂
• Gible ⁂
• Darumaka ⁂
• Druddigon ⁂
• Deino ⁂
• Skrelp ⁂
• Tyrunt ⁂
• Goomy ⁂
• Turtonator ⁂
• Drampa ⁂