Pokemon GO recently initiated a global challenge for trainers with the goal of catching 3 billion Pokemon before November 26th, and trainers around the world over have already managed to nab 500 million pocket monsters, unlocking the bronze reward tier. This means that trainers will see a larger number and wider range of Pokemon worldwide, lure modules that last a full six hours, and double XP for a set period. The challenge started out late on Sunday, and in less than two days, trainers already got their hands on half a billion Pokemon. That may seem like a lot, but at that pace, Pokemon GO players worldwide will collectively fall short; the goal is 3 billion Pokemon, and there are only five days left, which would theoretically put the number caught by the end of the challenge period at around 1.75 billion, barely more than half of the stated goal for the full suite of prizes.
The Pokemon GO global challenge’s next goal is 1.5 billion catches. Once trainers reach this milestone, they’ll unlock silver prizes, which will mean that an even wider selection of Pokemon will appear worldwide, and there will be an even larger number of them out there. Players will also get double stardust for all actions during the event period. The gold tier, unlocked at 3 billion catches, builds on that with even more Pokemon around the world, along with Farfetch’d being available everywhere, and Kangaskhan being available in East Asia.
The Global Challenge and Pokemon GO Travel show that’s being celebrated with the initiative were created to honor the travels of Pokemon trainers, a crowd that Niantic has noted tends to move around quite a lot. Since some Pokemon GO monsters have regional availability, many trainers work on completing their Pokedexes while traveling, and some trainers even travel for that specific purpose. The game has helped bring global communities together, and this latest effort from Niantic expands on that by putting all trainers in the game on the same team with a common goal, no matter where they may happen to normally reside or currently be, with more similar events being expected to follow in the future.
That was fast, Trainers! You’ve caught over 500 million Pokémon & unlocked new rewards during the Global Catch Challenge. #PokemonGOtravelpic.twitter.com/GuOTPxh6ts
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 21, 2017