The highly anticipated Pokémon Go Halloween event is right around the corner. This year, it will start on October 20 at 10 AM in your local time zone, and everyone will have the chance to encounter Mega Banette in Mega Rpaids, along with the opportunity for shiny Galarian Yamask and Noibat encounters. It will be a two-part event, and the second part will happen on October 27, with even more surprises. Giratina will appear in five-star raids throughout the event, and you can teach it its signature move, Shadow Force.
Mega Banette will be the latest mega Pokémon to arrive in the mobile game. Players can earn Mega energy for this Pokémon by defeating it in Mega Raids that appear throughout the event. Because these are more difficult encounters, we recommend working alongside other trainers to defeat Mega Banette.
Related: How to evolve Cosmog in Pokémon Go
The shiny versions for Galarian Yamask and Noibat will also be available during and after this event. Galarian Yamask will appear in one-star raids, with a chance to find it by completing Field Research tasks. Noibat will be more challenging to find. It will only appear in 7 km eggs, which players receive by exchanging gifts. The 7 km egg will need to be received during the Halloween event for a chance of it to hatch.
In addition to these two focuses, Giratina will return to five-star raids during the Halloween event. If players defeat and capture this Pokémon during the event, it will learn the charged attack, Shadow Force, and Giratina’s signature move. Unfortunately, we don’t have the stats on this Ghost-type move, but it could be an option to make Giratina even more fearsome moving forward.
There will be a Special Research quest line available during the Halloween event for players to earn Yamask and Galarian Yamask encounters. These quests are available to all players, so long as they log in during the event to grab them. However, a paid Timed Research will be available for players who want to earn more Yamask encounters. One is priced at USD $1.00, and the other is USD $5.00, which features more Candy bonuses, additional Halloween-themed tasks, and an avatar item players can earn by completing the Timed Research.
The arrival of the shiny versions of Noibat and Galarian Yamask is fun, along with Mega Banette, but Giratina learning the Shadow Force move could prove to be the biggest allure for many players. This will likely also feature the Halloween map that datamining group PokeMiners discovered last week.
