Pokemon Go's One Piece Crossover Event Now Live [Last Chance]

Pokemon Go's August Community Day may still be more than a week away, but a new event is now underway in the hit Pokemon mobile game. Right now, players around the world can catch a Pikachu wearing a straw hat as part of a special One Piece collaboration event, but you'll need to act quickly, as the Pokemon will only be available for a limited time.

The special straw hat Pikachu will appear in the wild until 1 PM local time on July 29. Additionally, Niantic will be offering matching straw hat avatar items for your trainer through the in-game Style Shop. Meanwhile, players in Japan will be able to visit statues of Luffy and other One Piece characters across Kumamoto Prefecture, which will serve as special PokeStops. You can read more details on the official Pokemon Go website.

In addition to the One Piece collaboration event, Armored Mewtwo is still appearing in Raid Battles around the world for a few more days. The Legendary Psychic Pokemon will serve as a five-star Raid boss until July 31. This version differs from a standard Mewtwo in a few ways. Not only is it donning the armor it wears in the new Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution movie, it also boasts different stats and a different movepool than a typical Mewtwo.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic recently rolled out a new update that completely overhauled the game's appraisal system. Now when you appraise a Pokemon, you'll see details about when and where you captured the monsters, as well as a clear overview of its Attack, Defense, and HP stats, with a one- to three-star rating signifying its overall potential. You can see the full patch notes for the update on the App Store.

The update also introduces Team Rocket to the game, after weeks of teases. The villainous trainers can be found at certain PokeStops, and they use Shadow Pokemon in battle. If you can defeat the Rocket grunts, you'll have a chance to capture their Shadow Pokemon and then purify them to increase their stats. You can read more about the process in our Pokemon Go Shadow Pokemon guide.