Back at the beginning of November, Niantic announced a new in-game event coming to Pokémon GO which would allow players to participate in city-wide events with the event being called Pokémon GO City Spotlight.
Initially the event was scheduled to happen on 22 November 2020 in Kyoto, as well as Busan, South Korea, Auckland in New Zealand, and Tainan in Taiwan. However, recently Japan has been the newest victim of spikes of COVID-19 which has caused Niantic to pull the plug on the Kyoto City Spotlight event.
Some of the content that was going to be part of the event is as follows:
What’s included in the free citywide experience
- The City Spotlight Timed Research will take you and your Buddy Pokémon all around your city.
- Take snapshots to earn Pokémon encounters, a Poffin, Stardust, and a Lucky Egg.
- Spin PokéStops for a chance to receive a special Gift sticker.
- Take part in a PokéStop scanning competition against other participating cities! Check how your city is faring in the standings on an online leaderboard. The city with the most AR Mapping tasks completed at the end of the weekend will win an exclusive event featuring a 1/4 Hatch Distance bonus!
- Receive a special reward when you complete an AR Mapping task.
What’s included in the City Spotlight ticketed experience
- Everything in the free citywide experience.
- The following Pokémon will be attracted to special event Incense: Onix, Lapras, Unown C, Nosepass, Rhyhorn, Doduo, Mantine, Pidgey, Pelipper, Pidgeot, and Stoutland. If you’re lucky, you may encounter a Shiny Unown C! Shiny Unown C will be available only for the duration of this event to Trainers who have a City Spotlight ticket.
- Explore the city with your Buddy Pokémon using exclusive City Spotlight Special Research as a guide! Complete the Special Research to receive a Poffin, an Incense, a Super Incubator, three Lucky Eggs, a Lure Module, an encounter with Lapras, XP, and Stardust.
- Earn up to three extra hearts with your buddy in every category.
- Your buddy will know that an exciting adventure is ahead! Give it treats during the event, and it’ll automatically become excited!
- 1/4 Hatch Distance when an Egg is placed in an Incubator while the City Spotlight initiative is active.
- Incense will be more effective while you’re walking and will last for two hours.
Recently Niantic has been under a pretty heavy amount of scrutiny for taking back some of the options that they had put in place during the pandemic that allowed players to play from the safe confinement of their home. But with this new rise in COVID-19 cases throughout Japan, I feel that they did the right thing by canceling the Kyoto event because if it were to go on, there is the strong possibility that it would have become a cluster if someone who did not know they were infected with the virus goes to the event.
Niantic has also announced their Go Beyond update, which is going to be bringing a number of new elements to the game. It will certainly keep players interested in the title even if they can’t go out to play.