Pokémon trainers around the world have completed the Pokémon Go Global Catch Challenge, which involved collectively catching 3 billion Pokémon together over a period of 7 days. Niantic kicked off the Challenge with a host of trainers in Japan on November 19, and it was the first event of its kind for their popular AR game.
The Global Catch Challenge required trainers to catch a pre-determined number of Pokémon to reach bronze, silver, and gold reward tiers before the end of the 7 days.
- Bronze tier: required trainers to catch 500 million Pokémon. Awards for this tier included double xp, six hour duration lure modules and more Pokemon appearing globally.
- Silver tier: required trainers to catch 1.5 billion Pokémon. Awards for this tier included double xp, six hour duration lure modules, double stardust and even more Pokémon appearing globally.
- Gold tier: required trainers to catch 3 billion Pokémon. Awards for this tier included double xp, six hour duration lure modules, double stardust, Farfetch’d available worldwide for 48 hours and Kangaskhan available in East Asia for 48 hours.
Trainers quickly reached the half-way point on November 22, catching 1.5 billion Pokémon before the holiday. Trainers surpassed the 3 Billion Pokémon catch goal on November 25, a day before the event ended. Niantic offered one more reward for completing the Challenge and released Ho-oh for raid battles until December 12. Double stardust and double xp duration time is also extended to December 1, so trainers have a little more time to power up and level up their Pokémon with these boosts.
The success of the Global Catch Challenge may cause Niantic to release similar events in the future, but there has not been any word yet on if they will choose to do so. For now, trainers can enjoy Pokémon Go’s new raid features and stay up to date on the game’s latest changes through the official website and Twitter.