'Pokemon GO' December Community Day: Start Time, Featured Pokemon and Field Research Tasks

The Pokemon GO Community Day for December 2021 is a big one, closing out the year with lots of bonuses and opportunities to expand your roster.

If you are not familiar with Community Days, they are monthly occurrences in Niantic's perpetually lucrative cash cow. During these special events, trainers will benefit from accelerated progression and rare Pokemon becoming more prolific out in the wild. Often landing on a weekend, they are simply the best time to play this augmented-reality game if you want to avoid the chore of tedious grinding.

While it is typical for a Pokemon GO Community Day to be just that (a single day), Niantic are making a bigger deal for December's iteration, as it's the last one for the year. As such, it will actually span a full weekend this time, with different bonuses set aside for the Saturday and the Sunday.

Not only will this celebration be extended, but its contents will also be substantial. According to the official blog, the December 2021 Community Day will involve every single Pokemon that was previously featured in other Community Days throughout 2021, meaning that there will be a plenty of capture opportunities.

Here is all you need to know about the December 2021 Community Day in Pokemon GO, including when it will take place, what bonuses are on offer and what the (many) featured Pokemon are.

When Is the 'Pokemon GO' Community Day in December?

As aforementioned, the upcoming Pokemon GO Community Day would more accurately be described as a full weekend.

The event is going to be split into two separate parts, the first of which will commence on Saturday, December 18, at 11 a.m. local time. This will run until 5 p.m.

After a brief interlude, the second half will then begin on Sunday, December 19 with a start time of 11 a.m. Again, this is scheduled to end at 5 p.m.

'Pokemon GO' December Community Day Bonuses

As per usual, throughout both Community Day you will benefit from limited-time bonuses that make it easier to catch and trade Pokemon. These are as follows:

• Incense activated during the event will last for three hours
• Lure Modules activated during the event will last for three hours
• The walking distance for hatching Eggs will be reduced by 50%
• There will be a double XP boost for catching Pokemon
• You will earn double the amount of Stardust from catching Pokemon.

In addition to these, there will also be a few additional, end-of-year bonuses that are active during a slightly different time window. The following will be available from 1 p.m. on December 18 to 11:59 p.m. on December 19.

• The stardust cost for trades will be reduced by 25%
• You will get 1 extra special trade per day.

Pokemon Storage and Item Bag Cap Increase

In preparation for the above, Niantic will also be expanding your storage capacity, so that you have enough room for all your new captures and rewards.

From 4 p.m. ET on December 16, your Pokemon Storage Expansion cap will raise from 5,000 to 5,500. Meanwhile, your Item Bag storage will go from 4,000 to 4,500.

Field Research Tasks

From Friday, December 17 at 1 p.m. ET to December 20, at 1 p.m. ET, you will be able to complete Field Research tasks to earn Mega Energy for the following Pokemon:

• Charizard
• Beedrill
• Gengar
• Gyarados
• Altaria

All of the Featured Pokemon

Normally there are only a handful of featured Pokemon in a given Community Day, but for this 2021 send-off there are 25.

To help you keep track of which Pokemon are available during the event, and what the unlock criteria for each of them is, Newsweek has put together this handy table. As always, there is a chance that you will get a shinny variant for any them.