'Pokémon Go' Easter Event: Fans guess at Niantic's update plans

A dyed-in-the-wool tradition for Pokémon Go players is guessing what holiday Niantic will make into a special Pokémon Go event. Previous contenders have been April Fools' Day and St. Patrick's Day, and Easter is the new favored guess. 

Part of this is certainly just a way for fans to pass time in between big updates, but it does bring into question why Niantic seems to keep so tight-lipped about their event updates. Even without a lot of feedback from Niantic though, some players think we might be seeing an Easter event coming today.

Pokémon Go Easter Event: The timing is right for a new event to happen today

In a Silph Road post, a user named Farewell18 observed that Niantic officially teased the Water Festival around this time two weeks ago, with the event debuting later in the day, so there's precedent for a last minute announcement followed by a quick event roll-out. There's also a precedent for them sticking to the same day of the week for announcements and certain updates, since nest migrations happen every other Thursday, almost without fail.

According to Farewell18, an Easter event could also be good because of the amount of time people might have off.

"Around here [Western Europe]," they wrote, "children have no school on Thursday, Friday and Monday, with Friday and Monday also being national holidays. That means an event running Wednesday to Wednesday would encompass four to five non-working days out of seven."

Niantic's dogged refusal to announce things early has been something of a sticking point for players. For every Pokémon Go fan that likes the excitement of learning about an event or an update day-of, there's one who is distinctly unenthused about their schedule.

"It doesn't look like Niantic seem to understand the value of announcing things early," redditor Pengolin commented. "People love this game and will arrange time in their lives to play it ... If they told everyone last week that an Easter event was coming I'm pretty sure they'd make more money because more people would have been able to set aside time to play the game."

Whether or not you like Niantic's event announcement model, it's good to wonder why fans are so insistent for a new event so shortly after the Water Festival ended.

Pokémon Go Easter Event: Why players are excited, even though the Water Festival just ended

"The Water Event ended 2 weeks ago today," TarkatanAccountant wrote. "Why would people expect another event right away? My takeaway was that we shouldn't expect the events during holidays anymore."

While it can be fun to think about what certain holiday events might look like, the fact of the matter is that predictions for events are just as numerous as the events themselves, and it is true: the Water Festival only ended two weeks ago on March 29th. But until we get a major update to the way gyms work or see trading implemented, we're likely to keep seeing predictions for new events every time a holiday comes around, because of Niantic's aforementioned habit of announcing events very abruptly.

Perhaps once Niantic implements the in-game announcements that were teased in the data mine of 0.61.0 we'll see them forecast upcoming events more clearly, but until that happens, expect to see a lot more predictions like this. 

More Pokémon Go news, updates, tips and tricks

Check out Mic's Pokémon Go 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 10km 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.

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