Niantic is giving Pokémon GO players another reason to team up with friends. Starting October 12, 2025, the new Weekly Challenges feature will go live, allowing Trainers to form small groups and complete timed missions together for in-game rewards and Friendship boosts.
Team Up and Take On the Week
Each week, players can join up to three other Trainers from anywhere in the world to tackle a fresh challenge. These cooperative events refresh every Sunday at 5:00 p.m. PDT and wrap up a week later at the same time, keeping the rhythm predictable and community-focused. Once the challenge begins, the group has seven days to hit shared goals, earn experience points, and collect Stardust, whether they fully complete the mission or not.
How It Works
The feature lives under the new Social tab in each player’s profile, sitting alongside the existing Party Play option. From here, Trainers can create a group, join a friend’s invite, or track progress on their current challenge. Each group is capped at four members, and players can only participate in one weekly challenge at a time.
Invitations to join a group expire after 24 hours, keeping participation active and organized. Once inside, players can monitor both daily and overall performance for their team through a shared progress tracker.
Rewards for Team Effort
Successful groups will celebrate with rewards that include 20,000 XP, 6,000 Stardust, and an extra boost to Friendship levels among group members. Even if a challenge isn’t fully completed, everyone still walks away with some Stardust, proof that teamwork pays off, even in partial victories.
A neat social twist: players who aren’t already connected as Friends can become so after completing a challenge together. The Friendship progress bonus applies automatically to these new relationships, reinforcing the cooperative theme Niantic has long encouraged.
Matchmaking on the Horizon
For now, players need to manually form their groups, but Niantic says matchmaking is coming before the end of the year. Once available, this option will let Trainers pair up with others across the community, even if they haven’t friended them yet, making it easier for solo players to join in the fun.
Keeping the Spirit of Adventure Alive
As with all Pokémon GO features, Niantic reminds players to stay aware of their surroundings and follow local health guidelines during gameplay.
More details about Weekly Challenges, including visuals and ongoing updates, can be found on the official Pokémon GO website.
