Pokemon GOÂ has launched its latest event, Buddy Up, which encourages fans to utilize the game's buddy Pokemon feature. While most fans will be participating in the Buddy Up event for the bonuses associated with buddy Pokemon, the event will also give players the opportunity to catch a region-exclusive Pokemon that they may never have had the opportunity to add to their collection before.
As part of the Pokemon GO Buddy Up event, Niantic is releasing both Illumise and Volbeat worldwide. Typically, Illumise is only available in Africa, North America, and South America, whereas Volbeat can only be found in Asia, Australia, and Europe. While the Pokemon GO Buddy Up event is live (from now until Monday, April 27 at 10:00pm local time), fans will be able to find both Illumise and Volbeat in the wild.
Not only will both Illumise and Volbeat be spawning in Pokemon GO around the world, but they will be available through other methods as well. There will be a couple of Pokemon GO Buddy Up Field Research tasks that players can get during the event where the reward is a Volbeat or Illumise encounter. To trigger a Volbeat encounter, Pokemon GO players need the Field Research task to take a snapshot of their buddy, and to get the Illumise encounter, players need to get the Field Research task to play with their buddy Pokemon.
While the chance to catch a region-exclusive Pokemon is plenty exciting for many Pokemon GO players, Niantic is sweetening the pot even further. As of today, both the shiny variants of both Illumise and Volbeat will be available, so fans will have a chance to expand their collection of shiny Pokemon in the game by participating in the event.
Of course, Pokemon GO players will be able to participate in the event while maintaining social distancing rules thanks to some new quality of life improvements that Niantic has added to Pokemon GO. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how Niantic will continue to change up Pokemon GO so that the game is able to maintain its popularity in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Pokemon GO is out now for iOS and Android mobile devices.