Highlights
- One Pokemon GO player went from level 43 to 44 without catching any Pokemon, winning a raid, or visiting a PokeStop.
- Niantic raised the level cap to 50, with level 50 requiring 30 million experience points.
- Level 42 challenges, especially the task to evolve Eevee, slowed down the player's progress, while level 44 challenges can be completed by winning 90 matches in the Pokemon GO Battle League.
One Pokemon GO player with impressive self-restraint managed to go from level 43 to 44 without doing any of the most common activities normally associated with leveling. Their curious lack of activity stats promptly made the rounds on social media, expanding the already vast list of examples illustrating the Pokemon GO fandom's dedication.
For more than four years since its 2016 release, Niantic's hit mobile game had a level cap of 40. The developer finally raised the Pokemon GO level cap to 50 as part of a November 2020 update. That patch stuck with the trend of exponentially rising XP requirements for leveling, with level 50 mandating 30 million experience points, the equivalent of going from level 1 to 40 six times.
Despite that hefty curve, the biggest obstacle in moving beyond level 40 are the Pokemon GO challenge requirements. Reddit user JuanG12 can very much attest to that fact, having struggled to complete the level 42 challenges for so long that they ended up stacking enough XP for level 44. The task to evolve Eevee into each of its unique evolutions was the main reason for their progress slowing to a crawl, with the player revealing that challenge took them months to complete. They found the next set of quests to be much less demanding, eventually taking just three days to clear it and use their XP stack to reach level 43.
Since the level 44 challenge requirements can be completed by winning just 90 matches in the Pokemon GO Battle League, the player decided do just that immediately after reaching level 43. Two days of battling later, they received another level-up screen congratulating them for visiting no PokeStops, catching zero Pokemon, and not winning any raids. The unusual activity report caught the eye of hundreds of other players who recently voted to send it to the front page of the r/PokemonGO subreddit.
Elaborating on their Pokemon GO achievement, JuanG12 confirmed that they actually had to tank Great Battle League sets after winning two matches in order to avoid getting any Pokemon encounter rewards that would mess with their zero-catches badge of honor. They also had to exercise self-restraint to avoid spinning any PokeStops during their battling efforts on level 43. Overall, the fan found the undertaking to be a nice change of pace from the Eevee evolution challenge, although they admitted they were close to giving into the urge to spin PokeStops throughout this period.
Pokemon GO is available now on mobile devices.