The Weird Pokemon Go Event No One Really Noticed

Over the weekend that introduced season two of the GBL and brought back Altered Forme Giratina, something strange happened. There was clearly an event, but no one seemed to… notice. It just happened. There was no real announcement, nothing. But it was there.

It wasn’t a good event, but it was there.

I didn’t notice this event myself until I bought the 1 coin Incense pack and used one. Because of the current pandemic that’s sweeping the globe, Incenses have been buffed. While an Incense used to last 30 minutes and spawn 5-8 Pokemon, increasing if you are traveling, walking around or (weirdly) in a car. Because of Coronavirus and people being unable to go outside, Incense was boosted to insane levels. Temporarily, Incense lasts for 1 hour and spawns 1 Pokemon every minute or so.

That’s a total of about 60 Pokemon.

I used mine, expecting normal, common spawns in clear weather. Things like Numel, Slugma and Roselia, often punctuated with the odd Skitty or Zigzagoon. I didn’t get ANY of those.

So… Many… Mankeys

What I got instead was massive amounts of common fighting types. Mostly Mankey, Makuhita and Meditite. With the odd Machop or Sawk thrown in. In fact, the only other Pokemon I got out of that incense that WEREN’T fighting types were one Skitty, one Growlithe and a lone Cranidos, right at the end of the Incense’s duration.

I thought that maybe this was just the Incense. Or maybe it was because it had been cloudy earlier and the weather had just cleared up. Maybe it was something I hadn’t noticed. But no, later on, when I went out, there were STILL Mankeys, Makuhitas and Meditites everywhere. Interspersed with the odd Machop. I couldn’t even blame it on weather boosting from cloudy weather. If that was the case, I would be seeing more Pokemon like Koffing, Snubbull and Grimer too.

But WHY?

I don’t know why. The spawns were clearly sorta event-based. Sure, we were getting increased spawns, that was part of the pandemic stuff Niantic had implemented. There was no reason for all the spawns to be fighting types though… Unless this was an event.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The increased spawns. The specific spawns. But there had to be more to it.

Then I heard about the appearance of shiny Timburr. A sudden, unannounced shiny. But more importantly, ANOTHER FIGHTING TYPE! That settled it, this had to be some sort of event. A fighting event perhaps? Maybe a delayed one? After all, we just had Darkrai and we have Coballion coming soon. Or perhaps it’s a celebration of the Go Battle League? Where you fight other players?

I don’t know.

No one seemed to really pick up on it.

Seriously, no one seemed to care at all.

I checked on r/theSilphRoad, no one mentioned it. They’d mentioned the shiny Timburr, but that was about it. There was no announcement in-game, there was nothing!

Yet still, MOST spawns had been replaced with Mankey, Makuhita and Meditite. Even without weather boosts. In fact, those three Pokemon invaded everything apart from eggs and raids. They also took up about 75% of all Incense spawns. This didn’t seem to be a local thing either. I asked a few friends from across the globe and they all said the same thing. But they all just shrugged it off.

Although I don’t blame people for not caring. After all, they’re common fighting types. Sure, they have shinies, but that’s about it…