Pokémon Sun and Moon’s Global Mission Fails… Again

A little less embarrassing than the first time around though.

Pokémon Sun and Moon’s second Global Mission has officially failed. Though the goal for this mission was much more modest than the first, players still didn’t register enough Pokémon. The seemingly confusing Island Scan feature might be to blame.

The aim of The Pokémon Company’s second try on their Global Mission was for players to catch or defeat 1 million Pokémon by using Sun and Moon’s Island Scan. Players worldwide had December 27th until January 9th to rise to the challenge, but they only got 66% of the way there with 661,839 Pokémon scanned and fought. If the mission was completed, players would have received 2,017 Festival Coins, the currency used in the game’s online hub Festival Plaza. Instead, they got 217 coins as a consolation prize. 

Though players failed this challenge, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the first Global Mission, which tasked players with catching 100 million Pokémon. A measly 16.5 million monsters ended up caught, and the Global Mission team at The Pokémon Company definitely got a talking-to.

Why can’t the world’s Pokémon trainers seem to complete these challenges? For the first one, someone wildly overprojected the popularity of the Global Mission or simply the amount of Pokémon players would be able to catch. For the second mission, I think the Island Scan feature might have thrown people off.

To use Island Scan, you first have to scan 10 QR codes. After that, a rare non-Alolan Pokémon will become findable with Island Scan, allowing you to battle it. You can only encounter one of these rare Pokés a day, but that’s supposed to make it more exciting and exclusive.

Unlocking the Island Scan feature is a little weird itself, but even if players did catch or defeat a Pokémon using it, they still had to register their progress with the online Global Sync function. Both of these requirements aren’t very intuitive for most Pokémon Sun and Moon players, especially younger ones. I can see why trainers around the globe couldn’t quite reach this goal, even if it was more feasible than the first.