Pokémon Go is a very popular mobile game that was released in July 2016 and has seen success and popularity since its release. Pokémon Go is a game that uses a map from wherever you are and spawns Pokémon all over it, but you can only encounter and see the ones in your range, and if you want to encounter more, you’ll have to go for a walk or wait for more to spawn near you. It tracks your location, so when you go out for a walk or even travel, you can find Pokémon that were out of your reach before, but if you are going too fast, Pokémon won’t spawn on your map, so only playing while in transport likely won’t work. Pokémon Go contains most of the Pokémon that have been created, with a new Pokémon for the game released now and then. Pokémon Go has around 900 of the 1025 Pokémon released in it as of the 3rd of May 2025 at 9:16 AM.
Pokémon go has places called Pokéstops in the game and also Pokémon gyms which you can place your Pokémon in to defend it if its run by the team you joined at the start of the game, you can also battle and defeat the Pokémon in the gym if your team doesn’t run the gym and if you defeat it you can place you Pokémon in it claiming the gym for your team until someone defeats it. There is a maximum of 6 Pokémon that can be in a gym. However, if the gym already has 6 Pokémon, you will not be able to place your Pokémon in it. Pokémon gyms also have raid eggs which can spawn on them, and once the egg hatches, there will be a raid boss at the gym, and you can battle it to take it down, and if you succeed, you will have a chance to catch the raid boss. There is different difficulties of raid bosses with the harder ones needing stronger Pokémon or more people to take it down, you also will not be able to attack any Pokémon in the gym other than the raid boss for the time the raid boss goes on which is usually around 40 minutes, it also takes around 40 minutes for the raid egg to hatch and while it hasn’t hatched yet you will be able to attack the Pokémon in the gym of course as long as it’s not your teams Pokémon. Pokéstops and Pokémon gyms are spread across the world map, and if you’re close enough to one, you can spin it to get resources to help you heal your Pokémon or catch new Pokémon. You can also get eggs from spinning gyms if you have the egg storage for them. Eggs in Pokémon contain Pokémon, but you have to hatch them to find out which one. You can hatch eggs by placing them in incubators and walking the required number of steps to hatch them. The longer you walk, the rarer the Pokémon that you hatch. You start the game with one infinite incubator, which you get back every use, but that isn’t the only incubator you can get, as sometimes you can get 3-use incubators from completing tasks that the game gives you. There are also three incubators, which shorten the hatch distance but don’t alter the contents; however, they’re harder to obtain.
Every time you encounter a Pokémon, it’ll have a chance to be shiny, which is usually around 1/500 but can be 1/64 and even as low as 1/10 in certain events. You will not be able to find a shiny of a certain Pokémon if that Pokémon hasn’t had its shiny released in the game yet. There are usually around three shiny releases per month, but the number can vary. A shiny Pokémon is that Pokémon but with different colours and sparkles when coming out of a pokeball or when being encountered, and is usually seen as a cool thing to have.
Pokémon go still has events every single week and sometimes even twice a week where new Pokémon or new shiny Pokémon can be released and sometimes both a new shiny and a new Pokémon can release in the same event, in most events there is usually unique spawns which you might now find in the wild when these events aren’t going on. There are also legendary Pokémon in the game, which are stronger and harder to catch than other Pokémon, making them a must for hard raid battles. I’ve really enjoyed this game for the time I’ve played it, so I recommend giving it a try if it sounds interesting to you.