With it only being less than a week until the beginning of December, Niantic is preparing Pokemon GO for its final month of 2020. Niantic has previously confirmed that its brought back the stay-at-home incentives, which will run throughout the winter season and well into July 2021. And today, it has detailed what players can expect in terms of content once December hits.
Some of it players already knew about, such as the GO Beyond Update which will increase the level cap from 40 to 50 (something that players have been clamoring for since the game first launched in 2016), but Niantic does lay out the month's new Spotlight Hours, all of which will take place on Tuesdays at 6pm local time and focus on different ice-type Pokemon to match the winter season.
On December 1st, Seel, one of the original Gen 1 Pokemon from Red and Blue, will appear more frequently and players can also earn twice as much XP for evolving Pokemon. Though Seel is actually a water-type, most of its attacks in Pokemon GO are ice-types and it evolves into the Water/Ice dual-type Dewgong.
On December 8th, it'll be Swinub, an Ice/Ground type from Gen 2, and players will earn twice as much Stardust when catching Pokemon. On December 22nd, Snorunt from Gen 3 will appear and players can earn twice as much Candy for transferring Pokemon.
December 29th marks the last one, once again offering twice the XP for evolving Pokemon and more chances to encounter the Ice/Grass type Snover from the Gen 4 games, Diamond and Pearl, which many fans hope are getting remakes in the future.
As for December 15th, Niantic doesn't actually say which Pokemon will appear on that day, only calling it a "surprise" and that players will earn twice the Candy for catching Pokemon during that hour. Perhaps it's one of the upcoming Gen 6 Kalos Pokemon from X and Y, which Niantic confirmed will be added from the beginning of December. If this is the case, it's likely either Bergmite or Amaura.
Before any of that, though, some kind of Pokemon announcement is expected to take place during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where Pikachu will be making an appearance as one of the parade's balloons.
As for what this announcement could be, there are too many possibilities, as while there are rumors/hopes for the aforementioned remakes or a brand-new game, it could very well be related to an already announced project, like Detective Pikachu 2.
Pokemon GOÂ is available on Android and iOS.
Source: Niantic