Pokémon Go Fest is back for 2022. The global annual event will introduce a handful of time-limited events, a new pocket monster to catch, and rare shinies to find across a two-day celebration running from June 4 to June 5. But ticket prices have been raised from last year’s discounted cost.
Developer Niantic outlined what’s coming in Pokémon Go Fest 2022 in a recent blog post : Mythical pokémon Shaymin will be introduced; shiny versions of Unown B, Shroomish, Axew, and others will make their way into the wild; and there'll be plenty of opportunities to catch rare pokémon that don’t usually appear.
Many of the weekend’s events will be open to every player, although the best rewards are reserved for ticket holders. In a first for the annual celebration, it'll wrap up with a special finale event on August 27. If you buy a ticket for the global event in June, you'll get free entry into the finale.
Ticket prices have been raised back up to $15 – that’s about £12 / AU$21. The event’s entry price dropped to only $5 in 2021 when Niantic held a hybrid in-person-online event in response to the Covid pandemic. Standalone tickets for the August finale will go up for sale for $10.99 – about £8.80/ AU$15.48 – at a later date.
Find all the details of Pokémon Go Fest 2022 below.
Saturday, June 4
The first day of Pokémon Go Fest 2022 will introduce a new Special Research questline. It’ll have you tracking and catching mythical pocket monster Land Forme Shaymin, as well as grabbing some event-exclusive rewards and avatar items along the way.
In a first for Pokémon Go, the event has an element of customization, letting you set its difficulty to Relaxed, Standard, or Master – each of which comes with different sticker rewards – as well as choose a preferred gameplay focus from Catch, Explore, or Battle.
Four habitats will be in rotation throughout the day, with different pokémon appearing during each hour. The habitats include city, plains, rainforest, and tundra. Ticket holders will also be able to use incense to attract an additional range of pokémon, including Klink and Galarian Weezing, while a new collaborative Global Challenge Arena will earn you hourly bonuses.
A handful of shiny pokémon are making their debuts, including Shiny Shroomish, Shiny Numel, Shiny Karrablast, Shiny Axew, and Shiny Shelmet. Ticket holders will have an increased chance of encountering them using incense.
The event will run from 10am to 6pm local time.
Sunday, June 5
The second day of Pokémon Go Fest 2022 will introduce a new unnamed pokémon to five-star raids, and a short Special Research questline. All the pokémon that featured on Saturday will also appear again, and every Pokémon Go player, even those without an event ticket, will be able to complete in the Global Challenge Arena.
Ticket holders, meanwhile, will get access to yet another Special Research story and another chance to attract Saturday’s pokémon with incense. Team GO Rocket balloons will appear more frequently, too, and you’ll earn twice the normal amount of Mysterious Components for challenging Team GO Rocket Grunts.
Again, those activities will be running from 10am to 6pm local time.
Across the weekend
Throughout the event, ticket-holders can earn up to nine free Raid Passes by spinning Gyms, collect special event stickers by opening gifts and spinning PokéStops, and earn a surprise by taking five snapshots.
Pokémon Go players who don’t buy a ticket can also enjoy some goodies. A new costume-wearing Pikachu will debut in the wild and one-star raids, Axew will also appear across one-star raids, and anyone who takes a snapshot during event hours will earn an undisclosed prize.
PS5 VRR: everything you need to know about the display technology
Variable refresh rate (or VRR, for short) has been a much-requested feature for PS5 ever since the console launched back in November, 2020. Especially since Sony’s flagship console already checks the boxes for so many premium features, including 120Hz support, raytracing capabilities and the sublime haptic feedback and adaptive triggers courtesy of the DualSense controller.
VRR was curiously absent on PS5 , then, and even we were baffled by its original omission, especially considering both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S wholeheartedly support the feature. Thankfully, though, VRR’s omission is now a thing of the past. The display technology is is now available on PS5 , and Sony has announced a list of games that will receive official VRR support.
If you own a PS5 and are wondering what all the fuss is about surrounding VRR, then, we’ve prepared a guide explaining exactly what it is, how it will affect your PS5 games, as well as which titles support the feature. Read on to learn everything you need to know about PS5 VRR.
What is VRR?
Variable refresh rate is an increasingly common feature supported by many of the best TVs , and allows for a much smoother on-screen gaming experience. The feature is a solution to screen tearing, which occurs when your TV’s image refresh rate is out of sync with the game you’re playing.
Have you ever noticed a section of the image lag behind another, as if it’s been sliced in half, whenever you adjust the camera angle? That’s screen tearing in action, and it’s what variable refresh rate can eliminate entirely.
PS5 VRR will achieve this by syncing your TV’s display to the console’s output, effectively stopping screen tearing from happening without a hit to overall performance. Before variable refresh rate became more of a standard feature, one of the best ways to solve screen tearing was through a V-sync (vertical sync) option. V-sync achieves more or less the same results as variable refresh rate, with the caveat that it’s reliant on your hardware. As such, enabling vertical sync comes with a heavy hit to overall performance.
It’s not just screen tearing that PS5 VRR will solve, though. Another great benefit of the feature is that it’ll help to clean up games with frequent stuttering or those that are prone to frame drops for a smoother, more consistent experience. That’s a huge win for massive titles like Horizon Forbidden West or Elden Ring , where performance can buckle under the weight of those enormous open worlds. With VRR, you’ll barely notice when a game’s frame rate falls below its 60fps target.
Thankfully, variable refresh rate is now a standard feature with HDMI 2.1 cables, one of which is packed in with brand new PS5 consoles. If you have a TV that’s built with HDMI 2.1-ready ports, then you're already fully equipped to make use of PS5 VRR – though it’s best to check whether your display supports the feature
If you’re interested in learning more about variable refresh rate beyond this summary, our comprehensive ‘ What is VRR? ’ guide contains everything you need to know about the display technology.
How to enable PS5 VRR
PS5 VRR is finally here on Sony's flagship console. It's actually come much sooner than expected, with the company initially announcing via the official PlayStation blog that the feature was to be made available months from now. Instead, the much-requested feature is available to try on certain games right now.
Sony has also released a list of games that are set to receive official VRR support. It's a relatively small list right now, but you can expect most – if not all – first-party PS5 exclusives to get the upgrade eventually, alongside several third-party games, some of which have already announced VRR support. You can see the full list of supported games below.
In the case of official VRR support, a patch will be required on a per-game basis, which isn’t ideal. However, Sony has noted that future PS5 releases may support variable refresh rate at launch, so there’ll be no need for an update in these cases.
Thankfully, there's so system update that needs to be downloaded, but you may need to restart your console for PS5 VRR to appear in the Settings menu. It can then be enabled by going into Settings and heading to the Video Output submenu within Screen and Video. The option can be toggled to on, off, or set to automatic, which will apply VRR straight away for all supported games.
Interestingly, Sony has also included a toggle to apply PS5 VRR to unsupported games. Not every game will receive a tailor-made patch to support VRR, but this option means you can brute-force variable refresh rate at a system level, which should hopefully benefits numerous unsupported PS5 and PS4 games.
Sony notes that enabling this option “may improve video quality for some games,” but also warns that unexpected visual effects may occur as a result. Either way, it’s fantastic to see that PS5 VRR isn't limited to just a select few titles, even if those titles will likely perform better than unsupported ones. Of course, if you do encounter any odd visual anomalies when using this setting, you can always turn it off.
VRR is an exciting addition to PS5, then, and comes after Sony recently added auto low latency mode (or ALLM) to its console. The one omission from PS5’s display features that still stings, though, is the lack of 1440p support. Connect a PS5 to a 1440p monitor, and you’re stuck at 1080p, which means gamers are missing out on 43.75% more detail than they should be. With 1440p monitors being one of the most adopted display resolutions in the market, it’s a noticeable oversight from Sony that the PS5 can’t natively output games at this resolution.
Still, that doesn’t take the shine of PS5 VRR support, and we’ll be updating this guide with our full findings and compatible games as they continue to roll out.
PS5 VRR: officially supported games
Sony has announced an initial list of PS5 games that will officially support VRR display technology. That means that the following games will receive bespoke support for the feature, meaning that they'll hopefully have VRR implemented without any blemishes or shortcuts taken.
More games are sure to follow, too, with the list below not including games that developers have announced VRR support for themselves (for example, Arkane Studios has announced that Deathloop now has VRR support, which wasn't included in Sony's initial list).
The PS5 games that support VRR, as of now, are as follows:
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PSVR 2 is already wowing developers
A select number of developers have been getting their hands on PSVR 2 at GDC 2022, and one dev, in particular, has shared what their first experience was like with Sony's new headset.
In a post on Resetera (thanks, Push Square ), an anonymous developer at Truant Pixel had positive words to say about Sony's approach to the headset's design and features.
“Sony has been extremely deliberate with a lot of their choices about this thing,” the developer said. “They’ve been reading the room for a long time now.”
In regards to PSVR 2 's specs, which is set to be one of the most powerful headsets on the market, the dev said that it isn't just the technical prowess of the headset that makes it so exciting, but more how everything combines to create a truly immersive experience.
“Performance and immersion goes beyond resolution. The numbers certainly matter, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum.”
However, according to the Truant Pixel dev, it’s the unique features of Sony’s headset that really help it stand out from the competition. The PSVR 2 includes a vibration motor in the headset along with a ventilation port to help combat those sweatier play sessions . The PSVR 2 Sense Controllers also support haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and finger tracking.
“Haptics make a bigger impact than you realize," the dev wrote. "Think about the first time you experienced dualsense [sic], now consider it in the context of VR.”
The anonymous dev, who is clearly tied to an NDA, hence the secrecy, backed up Valve veteran Chet Faliszek’s glowing comments on Twitter, who also experienced a PSVR 2 tech demo at GDC 2022.
One concern about PSVR 2 that has been raised is the fact it isn't wireless, unlike the Oculus Quest 2 , or Meta Quest 2 as it's now known. Instead, players will have to make do with one wire connecting the headset to the console, which at least is an improvement over the original PSVR , which forced players to deal with two wires when stepping into the world of virtual reality.
Nevertheless, some VR fans have expressed concerns that the PSVR 2's solitary wire could limit the headset’s overall appeal and restrict what might be possible in games, a concern that the anonymous dev at Truant Pixel disagrees with.
“Stop sweating about the wire. It’ll disappear once you start playing – unless you’re spinning in circles or something.”
For those clamoring for videos of the PSVR 2 in action, the anonymous developer warned that any early footage could damage the prospects of Sony’s new headset and that VR, in general, already has a lot to prove for some people.
“People asking for videos, etc - it should be clear by now that that is never representative of the experience for VR, which often is unfairly scrutinized by gamers who are already very skeptical and jaded. I say this from experience. :),” the dev wrote on Resetera.
“VR already has enough to ‘prove’ for people, and showing unfinished builds with incomplete assets or performance hitches would not be in anyones [sic] best interest.”
Analysis: Will PSVR 2 release this year?
It’s clear that PSVR 2 is making a positive first impression with developers who have been lucky enough to experience the headset for themselves, but there are still two pieces of the puzzle that Sony has yet to address with the upcoming device: price and release date.
Sony has said that it’s aiming to release PSVR 2 towards the end of this year, but that the headset could slip to 2022 if there are complications with supply.
We’re still none the wiser when it comes to the price of PSVR 2, however. The headset appears to tick all the boxes that someone could desire for a high-end VR device, but that will likely come at an increased cost over the PSVR, which was $499 / £399 (about AU$650).
If you’re recently stumped up $499 / £449 / AU$749 for a PS5 console, the idea of paying a similar price for an accessory may be too much for some. There’s also the unavoidable fact that even finding a PS5 to purchase remains frustrating difficult.
The PSVR 2 certainly has a number of challenges to overcome, then, but it’s pleasing that developers are already encouraged by what they’ve seen. Ultimately it will be the games and experiences that Sony provides that will help sell PSVR 2 to gamers, and we think Sony might already have its killer app in Gran Turismo 7 .
Correction: March 25, 2022 An earlier version of this article included the incorrect price of the PS5 in Australia. The retail price of a PS5 in Australia is AU$749, not AU$975. The rumored release date was also stated to be 2023 instead of the end of 2022.