Pokémon Go is about to celebrate its first birthday. Yes, for real. It’s only been one year.
The app is celebrating the anniversary with an in-game “Solstice event” on July 13, with extra fire and ice-type pokémon, and bonuses like extra XP for accurate pokeball throws. They also announced a real-world celebration called Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago, where players can get together for their first Pokémon Go fan convention.
It’s strange to see how far Pokémon Go has come in just one year. The game took the world by storm for two or three very intense months in 2016, before quietly fading into the background. Despite breaking records with hundreds of millions of downloads in the first couple of months, 79 percent of its users had quit the app by September 2016. Since then, PokémonGo has tried to keep the spirit alive with in-game bonuses like this Solstice event.
Pokémon Go’s official birthday is July 6. If you’re one of the die-hard fans still playing the game, we recommend celebrating with a Pikachu cake.