Pokémon's iconic anime theme tune talks about wanting to be the very best — but what if there was a premium in-game item that could, over time, give your Pokémon a helping hand?
Well, as in the main series of Pokémon games, hit smartphone spin-off Pokémon Go is set to offer Gold Bottle Caps — rare items that will let you boost a creature's stats until it becomes a perfect 100%, or in Pokémon fan language, a 'hundo.' But these items won't be cheap — and seemingly won't be available very often.
Pokémon Go has recently allowed users to engage with more of the game's activities remotely, and begun selling items that bestow the stat-boosting Lucky Friend status on players when trading creatures. Now, the introduction of Bottle Caps marks another new frontier for the game, as something that will inarguably offer a gameplay advantage — better, stronger stats for the Pokémon of your choice — in exchange for your money.
The first Gold Bottle Cap, singular, will be offered as part of a new $19.99 event pass, GO Pass Deluxe: Ancients Recovered, which is set to be made available from Monday, June 23 until Sunday, June 29. Previous passes have cost either $7.99 or $14.99, making this offering the most expensive pass yet. It will also be the first time players will have overlapping event passes, as the monthly June pass will still be ongoing.
While a free version of the Ancients Recovered pass will also be available, Pokémon Go's first Gold Bottle Cap will only be offered in the pass' Deluxe version, which is a paid upgrade. The free pass will include an encounter with a Legendary Pokémon (one of the Regi family), three Pikachu wearing "dapper" costumes, plus Stardust, XP and other items. The paid upgrade adds Zacian and Zamazenta masks for your in-game avatar, plus premium in-game items such as Incense, an Incubator and Lure Modules, as well as that Gold Bottle Cap.
If you buy the premium upgrade via your browser on the Pokémon Go Web Store — outside of the game, and therefore outside of Apple and Google's pesky platform fees — you will additionally receive 10 Max Revives, 10 Max Potions, five Premium Battle Passes, five Max Particle Packs, a Max Mushroom, and an Incubator. And then there's the even more premium GO Pass: Deluxe: Ancients Recovered + 10 Ranks bundle, which unlocks the first 10 event pass tiers immediately and comes with even more Incubators when acquired via a Web Store purchase.
While the full details regarding Gold Bottle Caps are being confirmed today, the game's community has been expecting their announcement for several months after traces of the feature were spotted by dataminers within the game's code. Various concepts for their implementation have been discussed, and fans have had much to say on how they expect the feature to be introduced, how much it will cost, and how it will affect game balance.
Ahead of today's announcement, I put these concerns to Pokémon Go game director Michael Steranka, who said the feature had been designed to ensure Pokémon Go as a whole would not become pay-to-win.
"We have been really careful with the design for Bottle Caps," Steranka told IGN, during an interview held at the game's big Go Fest 2025 live event in Paris this past weekend. "That's something where, if we weren't thoughtful with the integration, it could really destroy the economy of the game.
"An item like a Bottle Cap is only going to be available very, very rarely," he continued. "And because of that, we don't feel that players will be able to just spend their way to having the best of the best of everything. And even once you obtain a Bottle Cap, it's actually going to be quite a lot of effort for people to Hyper Train their Pokémon to get their stats up."
Once unlocked via the event pass and applied to the Pokémon of your choice, a Gold Bottle Cap will begin a new feature, Hyper Training, that requires you complete tasks to slowly level your Pokémon's stats over time. Raising a Pokémon's Attack stat requires you battle using the Pokémon while it is set as your Buddy. Boosting defense will be possible as you strengthen your bond with your Buddy, by playing together, exploring, and catching other Pokémon. Levelling up HP, meanwhile, will see you exploring alongside your trainee as a buddy, spinning PokéStops, earning Buddy Candy, or via other adventures.
The fact that this further gameplay is also required will also help protect game balance, Steranka continued. "It's not something that is just an immediate, you know, spend money and then get powerful Pokémon type of a system," he said.
Ahead of today's official announcement, I spent some time at Go Fest 2025 chatting with players about their thoughts on the current state of Pokémon Go, and of the previously-datamined suggestion that Bottle Caps could be introduced at some point in the future.
Amid some excitement for the feature's arrival, a key question I heard from fans was how often Gold Bottle Caps would be offered — and the suggestion they needed to provided sparingly, in order to preserve game balance, and also to ensure players never felt continually pressured to spend money.
Today's announcement describes Gold Bottle Caps as "extremely rare" and states that "obtaining one is a special occasion, so select your trainee wisely!" When asked how often Gold Bottle Caps would be offered to players, Steranka said the exact frequency of their availability was still to be announced. Still, he confirmed, they would remain a rare item, and not another item designed to simply be always available via Pokémon Go's in-game shop.
In the past, Pokémon Go has offered the ultra-rare Master Ball item a handful of times over the past few years — and this frequency is something I heard a majority of players saying they thought would be fitting for Bottle Caps.
"I don't think we're ready to share the frequency that Bottle Caps will be available," Steranka said when I asked about the exact availability of the item going forward, "but it definitely will be one of the most rare items in the game."
As for the item's price, some fans have rationalised a high cost would be likely due to the sheer rarity of finding a 100% stat Pokémon via other means, such as paying for hundreds of chances to try and encounter the creature through normal gameplay such as raids.
Prior to the announcement, players had wondered whether other forms of Bottle Cap would be available, which perhaps might raise a Pokémon's stats by a fraction, or be offered for free. That does not seem to be the case.
"Right now we're launching with the Gold Bottle Cap, and that will enable you to train with a Pokémon to take any Pokémon up to max stats," Steranka confirmed.
It's been a busy year for Pokémon Go, whose development team now sits as part of Monopoly Go owner Scopely, following the recent closing of its $3.5 billion buyout of Niantic's gaming portfolio.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
