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Pokemon Go's weekly challenge feature has been in the game for nearly a year, and while the feature offers some great perks, there is room for improvement.
The feature allows up to four trainers to complete a goal within a week to earn experience points, stardust, link charges, an encounter with Tandemaus and seven points of friendship level progress with everyone in your group.
Trainers can use link charges to enter mega and super mega raids as an alternative to premium battle passes, which is great because they essentially allow people to do more raids for free.
However, in order to do super mega raids remotely, you need to use both link charges and a remote raid pass, which can be rather costly. By participating in weekly challenges, trainers can obtain and hold up to 600 link charges for free -- enough to do either four in-person mega raids or three super mega raids.
Tandemaus is a mouse-like couple that, outside of special events, is almost exclusive to the weekly challenge reward. Maushold, the evolved form of Tandemaus, has two forms -- it has a 99% chance of evolving into a family of four and a 1% chance of evolving into a family of three, making that particular form one of the more rarer Pokemon in the game.
Perhaps the greatest perk, in my opinion, is the seven extra friendship points because it allows you to build your
friendship with certain trainers that you want to unlock a remote trade with.
Remote trades unlock when you reach forever friends, which requires 180 friendship points. Once you do a remote trade with someone, your friendship meter will reset and require another 90 points to unlock another remote trade.
Since you only earn one point per day from regular interactions, the weekly challenge feature is a great way to strategize and play Pokemon Go together with friends from all over the world.
A lot of people like to prioritize trainers they're already lucky friends with in the game.
Lucky friends is a special status randomly earned with another trainer that guarantees your next trade with him or her will result in a lucky Pokemon with a minimum IV floor of 12 attack, 12 defense and 12 HP.
Since each of the three stats can randomly roll a value of 12, 13, 14 or 15, trainers have a one in 64 chance of obtaining a "hundo," or a Pokemon with perfect IVs. Lucky trades are easily one of the best ways to get a "shundo," which is a shiny Pokemon with perfect IVs -- a grail for most collectors.
It is possible to trigger lucky friends with a best friend or a forever friend by completing a weekly challenge together, and if you don't have anyone to play with, you can use the game's social tab to join a random group of trainers you're not friends with yet.
Weekly challenges were first introduced at 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025. The first challenge was to catch 500 Pokemon. I contributed 389 of the 500 and helped my local friends -- Grayden, Nolen and Moneyshua -- complete our challenge before the feature was temporarily disabled only a few hours later due to gameplay bugs.
It was later reintroduced in phases, starting in November with New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, before receiving a global rerelease on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025.
New challenges become available at 7 p.m. every Monday, and the tasks follow a fixed rotation -- catch 500 Pokemon, spin 150 Pokestops, complete 25 research tasks and walk 30 kilometers.
While these "challenges" might be difficult for some, they're a walk in the park for myself and many others. If the feature had a tier system, it would provide more excitement to a portion of the player base that can singlehandedly complete, within a few hours, a task that's designed to take four people an entire week to complete.
It's nothing for me to catch about 900 Pokemon within a three-hour community day event, and given that you can have up to four people on a team, it's reasonable to have a higher tier of challenges that could reward more items, bonuses and friendship points.
Something like a free encounter with a rotating legendary Pokemon and 30 friendship points for catching 30,000 Pokemon would suffice, while giving trainers the power to choose how they want to play the game.
Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520 and mchurella@altoonamirror.com