'Pokémon Go' Special Items Update: Players are reporting higher drops of evolution stones and more

Evolutionary Items. After a long stretch of time in Pokémon Go where it seemed like we'd never be able to suss out exactly how evolutionary items were allocated, Niantic decided to award a guaranteed item for every seven-day PokéStop streak. However, now it seems that players are reporting a glut of evolutionary items appearing in their streaks and when spinning at PokéStops.

Pokémon Go Evolutionary Items: players are reporting getting numerous special items across several stops

A user by the name of GITGUTFGTLOL noted that they were getting more evolutionary items than usual after their seven-day PokéStop streak in a post on the Silph Road on May 8.

"I spun a stop and was super excited I got a Kings Rock not on my 7-day streak," they reported. "Then I spun my next stop and BAM! A Kings Rock AND a Dragon Scale!"

Other players confirmed having received multiple evolution items within a shortened time frame as well, with user Thermocap reporting in a separate thread that they received three evolutionary items from a seven-day PokéStop streak. 

It's exciting to speculate that drop rates for evolutionary items have increased, whether accidentally or intentionally. However, it's still unclear as to what exactly is going on. As a poster named ojipog noted that there's a chance this uptick in evolutionary item acquisition is actually self-manufactured:

"One possible explanation is that more people are reporting it because of threads like these, causing a mania of confirmations bias," they wrote. "It's happened 100 times already with 100 different things."

It's probably an exaggeration to insist that things like this have happened "100 times," we should note. But until more data comes out confirming that players are getting more special items on the whole than they used to, it pays to be a little skeptical of reports like these. But on the other hand, if you find yourself mysteriously getting buckets of Kings Rocks and Dragon Scales, maybe now's not the time to look a gift Horsea in the mouth, you know?

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 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.