The Lunar New Year is typically one of the most festive times of the year in the world of gaming as many of today's most popular games ring in the Asian holiday with plenty of festive cheer. 2022's Year of the Tiger festivities have been no different with popular games like Overwatch and Rust already seeing a multitude of tiger-themed cosmetics introduced to celebrate the holiday. Among the variety of new additions, Pokemon GO recently revealed its own version of the Year of the Tiger celebrations with a feline creature seeing its shiny version added to the game.The Year of the Tiger isn't the first time Niantic's popular AR adaptation of the long-running monster-catching franchise has joined in on the Lunar New Year fun. Last year's Year of the Ox celebration saw Pokemon GO highlight its cow and bull creatures with both Tauros and Miltank being featured during the week-long event, alongside increased spawn rates for several other Pokemon. Now, with 2022 highlighting some of the franchise's cat-like companions, this year's Lunar New Year event will feature the Gen 6 Fire Pokemon Litleo seeing its shiny variant introduced into Pokemon GO.Niantic and the Pokemon Company officially revealed the details for Pokemon GO's upcoming Lunar New Year event with Shiny Litleo taking the spotlight for this year's celebration. Trainers will be able to catch Litleo's shiny form for the first time in the mobile game as well as seeing increased spawns for Pokemon with red and orange color schemes like Paras, Torchic, and Growlithe. Featured Raids during the event will also feature cat-themed Pokemon as well as Pokemon with the same color theme with the legendary Regirock appearing as a five-star raid.
Alongside the increased spawn rates, the event will also feature plenty of Field Research tasks for players to complete, granting a chance for participating players to catch some of the event's featured creatures. Players will be able to obtain Meowth's two regional variants as well as some raid and egg-exclusive event Pokemon like Darumaka and Espurr through the research tasks. The missions will also reward players with Mega Energy for one of the event's featured Pokemon, Gyarados.
Pokemon GO's Lunar New Year events kick off a jam-packed February for the massively popular mobile game, as there are plenty of events throughout the month for players to be excited for. February will conclude the game's ongoing Season of Heritage event which began at the start of December and the end of the month will play host to the next edition of the Pokemon GO Tour with this year's version celebrating the Johto region.
Pokemon GO is available now for iOS and Android devices.