What 'Choose Your Path Fossil Fun' Timed Research should you pick in Pokémon Go?

“Choose Your Path” Timed Research has appeared in Pokémon Go, giving you something to do and a bonus of your choice during weeks when there are no week-long events. You can pick from three different options that yield different bonuses, so you can pick based on how you plan on playing that week to make the most of said bonuses.

This research becomes available on Wednesdays, starting at 10 a.m. in your local time, and will be active until the following Sunday at 8 p.m. The current batch of “Choose Your Path” Timed Research is available from June 17 until June 21 and is titled “Choose Your Path: Fossil Fun.”

Below we explain which “Choose Your Path” option you should pick, what the bonuses do, and what the steps are for the different research paths in Pokémon Go. Note that it appears that players are getting different options, as it seems like Niantic is still testing out this feature. We’ll detail the differences below as well.

Update (June 19): We’ve updated this guide with the “Choose Your Path: Fossil Fun” steps for the Team Go Rocket and candy options.

Which ‘Choose Your Path: Fossil Fun’ option should you pick in Pokémon Go?

After claiming the automatically-completed Timed Research in your “events” tab, you’ll be able to pick from several choices. There are either three or six options with correlating bonuses:

Explore (PokéStops): 5x XP for spinning PokéStops
Catch (XP): 1.5x XP for catching Pokémon with nice throws or better
Battle (Raids): additional 5,000 XP for completing raids
Explore (Hatch): halved hatch distance
Catch (Candy): additional candy for catching Pokémon with nice throws or better
Battle (Team Go Rocket): extra Mysterious Components from Team Go Rocket grunts

Each option has its own single step of research (more on that in the section below). The rewards from all the research are the same, so you should just pick whichever option best suits your playstyle.

If you love raiding, pick battle. If you like going on walks, pick explore. If you catch every Pokémon you see, then pick catch. It can get more specific based on your needs. If you like walking, but your area doesn’t have many PokéStops, you may want to pick the hatch-specific option instead. If you need candy, you’ll want to pick the candy-specific option, and so forth.

Pokémon Go ‘Choose Your Path’ Timed Research steps

If you swipe over to your “events” tab, you’ll see an autocompleted “Choose Your Path” Timed Research that gives you 500 Stardust and 5 Poké Balls. Professor Willow will then appear and tell you to pick from the three/six prompts listed above. If you see six options to choose from, then you will get daily Timed Research and you can pick a new path each day. If you see only three options to pick from, your Timed Research will last until Sunday.

Here’s the research for each one you pick: