Pokemon Go Has Made Another Update, Here's What Changed

Niantic Labs has unleashed the second part of their festive Pokemon Go holiday update. The first part ran through December 25th to December 30th, which we recently covered. The second part of the update will run up until just beyond the new year, and here's what they changed.

According to Gamespot, you can your hands on Bronze, Silver and Gold boxes. Each of these boxes contains a number of goodies, including incense, lure modules, lucky eggs, Poke Balls and Great Balls. These items will be present in the game throughout the remainder of the end of the year holiday season, going from now up until January 3rd. This means you have just under a week to get your hands on the new special boxes in Pokemon Go.

This was preceded by another special event taking place between December 25th and December 30th, where the update allowed gamers to get their hands on Special Boxes, Great Boxes and Ultra Boxes. The special event featuring the boxes was received with a bit of a lukewarm response from the community. Some gamers felt as if they contained items that they had already stockpiled in Pokemon Go, and therefore the event wasn't all that noteworthy. Others were more interested in getting their hands on more incubators, since it's possible to acquire a lot of eggs but it's hard to get your hands on enough incubators to hatch them.

Many players have resolved to sticking with the basics, but it certainly doesn't mean they don't appreciate the kind, holiday gesture from Niantic Labs.

This second special event will likely appeal to people who have not been able to get their hands on more rare Pokemon in Pokemon Go, especially ever since Niantic updated the game with a few of the second generation Pokemon. However, you won't need the special boxes in order to increase your chance of getting your hands on the new monsters or their evolved forms, because Niantic has yet another event in play for die-hard gamers.

From now up until January 8th, 2017, Niantic Labs has increased the drop rate and encounter rate for select Pokemon in Pokemon Go, specifically some of the second generation Pokemon and some of the evolved forms of the first generation of Pokemon. This means that you will likely encounter fan-favorites such as Charizard, Charmander, Charmeleon, Squirtle, Wartotle, Blastoise, Ivysaur, Bulbasaur and Venusaur more frequently. This could greatly increase the pedigree of your Pokemon stash in Pokemon Go.

However, it's only available for a limited time, so you may want to act fast. If you're planning on heading out for New Year's Eve it's not a bad idea to take the app with you and walk off some of those kilometers on the eggs to get those bad boys to hatch, or spin a few signs passing by PokeStops on your way to an all-night party on the town.

To help you along the way, Niantic also increased the Lure modules so that they last double the amount of time than normal. So instead of only having the Lure work for 30 minutes, they now work for 60 minutes. Again, you only have until January 8th to take advantage of the increased drop-rates, and you only have until January 3rd to get your hands on those special boxes.