Pokémon Go has achieved a huge milestone just a few weeks after the third anniversary of its launch. According to a series of videos uploaded to YouTube on The Pokémon Company’s Japanese channel, the Niantic mobile title has been downloaded over 1 billion times since its release in July 2016. The number isn’t exclusively first-time downloads, as it does include re-downloads, but it’s still an impressive accomplishment.
Niantic and the Pokémon Go social media accounts in English have yet to make a comment on this milestone, but the fan-run Pokémon news site Serebii translated the news from the Japanese YouTube videos.
A significant portion of these downloads occurred within the first few months of Pokémon Go’s life, as the game reached 500 million downloads in September 2016. Less than year after launch, Pokémon Go had also reportedly generated over $1 billion by February 2017—just seven months after its release—which made it the fastest growing mobile game in terms of revenue.
Pokémon Go has found its success in longtime players who still regularly go out and play the game. One of the ways they maintain this relationship with their players is through a plethora of in-game events. In addition to the currently ongoing Team Rocket event, Pokémon Go already has two new events on the horizon: the return of the Legendary Pokémon Rayquaza in raids and the next Pokémon Go Community Day.
Rayquaza, the Sky High Pokémon from the main Gen 3 trio of Legendaries (Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza), is back—and may even appear in its Shiny form. It will be available in five-star raids until 1 PM PT on Monday, September 2, 2019, giving players a little over a month to get their hands on one.
This upcoming Saturday, August 3, is Pokémon Go Community Day. From 4 to 7 PM local time, the featured Pokémon of the month, Ralts, will spawn more often than usual—again, sometimes even in its Shiny form. Additionally, if players evolve a Kirlia (the evolved form of Ralts) into a Gardevoir or Gallade during the Community Day event (or up to one hour after it ends), that Gardevoir/Gallade will learn Synchronoise, the Psychic attack move exclusive to this event. Additionally, players can hatch Eggs at a quarter of the distance normally required and Lure Modules will last three hours instead of 30 minutes.