'Pokémon Go' Valentine's Day Event: Holiday update could introduce genders and breeding

Pokémon Go has already celebrated a few major holidays, including Halloween, Christmas and New Year's. Valentine's Day is right around the corner. Surely, Niantic will do a special Pokémon Go event for the holiday of love, right? Maybe not, but that hasn't stopped players from speculating over what could be coming.

The best guess as to what Niantic will do for Valentine's Day is the same guess we made in January after gendered Pikachu began appearing in Pokémon Go. It's also the same guess that players on The Silph Road have been making for weeks: Pokémon breeding. After all, we can't think of anything that says Valentine's Day more than some Pokémon romance.

Pokémon Go Valentine's Day Event: How it could change the game forever

There are only a few examples of Gen 1 Pokémon that definitively have a gender, like Chansey. So the introduction of gender to Pokémon Go would be a huge change. Valentine's Day is a perfect opportunity, marketing-wise, to introduce gender and breeding mechanics into Pokémon Go.

It would also, likely bring Pokémon breeding into the game to stay, which is one good reason why Niantic might be taking its time and getting the introduction of this major new feature just right. Considering that Pokémon Go is about random chances of catching certain species of Pokémon and Pokémon breeding ought to give players precisely as many of a certain species as they want, Niantic may have to balance things very carefully.

Still, assuming that a Pokémon Go Valentine's Day update is really in the works, we should know for sure in just a couple more weeks.

More Pokémon Go guides, tips, tricks and updates

Check out Mic's Pokémon Go tips and tricks. Here are guides on how to get stardust, how to determine how long it will take you to reach level 40, the kind of Pokémon you get from 10-kilometer eggs, how to create new PokéStops, how to maximize your chances of catching Pokémon and how PokéStops distribute Pokémon eggs. Also check out how to catch Gen 2 baby Pokémon, our analysis of post-balance update Chansey and Rhydon and everything you need to know about finding the long-awaited Pokémon Ditto.