‘Pokemon GO’ Rumors: Legendary Pokemon Part Of Raiding System

As the app continues to bring in big dollars, Pokemon GO rumors continue to persist. In December, Niantic struck deals with two major sponsors to bring over 17,000 new Poke Stops to the game in North America alone. Variety stated that U.S. Sprint through its family of establishments (Sprint, Boost Mobile, and Radio Shack) account for 10,500 new places to pick up eggs, revives, and Poke Balls among other things. Starbucks will be responsible for the remaining new stops to the tune of 7,800 locations.

Niantic didn’t stop with just that addition. The first of Generation 2 Pokemon started appearing. Pichu and Togepi both baby Pokemon have been hatching for Pokemon GO players across the world. The rumors had persisted for the better part of a month that new Pokemon were on the way since data miners had discovered new Pokemon in the latest Niantic Pokemon GO update.

With Generation 2 now available, this has led to speculation on what will be done with the remaining Pokemon from the first generation who have not been caught, yet. On the episode “New Nintendo Switch Impressions” of the popular podcast Nintendo Voice Chat, the hosts give their take on when we could see at least the legendary Pokemon that make up the mascots attached to the three team’s players can choose to play on.

“I think that my last point to make on this is I still think that the legendary birds are still part of whatever raiding is supposed to be. That’s the part of the game…they promised when they showed it.”

For the record, the Pokemon in question are Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos. This coincides with the teams Mystic, Valor, and Instinct respectively. The raiding that Jose Otero of IGN refers to comes from the original trailer for Pokemon GO.

Towards the end of the video, players are seen swarming to Time Square in New York City. Once there, they are met with what some data miners have called the strongest Pokemon in the game, the currently unavailable Mewtwo. Fans must work together to defeat the Mewtwo and make the catch. This is similar to the raids that can be found in MMO’s like World of Warcraft.

It is thought that this form of raiding can be done on a microscale against competing teams. In fact, one rumor suggests that each gym may only be allowed to catch one of type of the legendary birds. The idea is that catching multiples would then promote trading to complete the Pokedex something that Niantic CEO John Hanke talked about in an interview he did with Recode in October.

There is still another reason that we may not have seen the Legendary Pokemon up to this point. Early on, Niantic had stated that these three Pokemon would not be made available until Pokemon GO had released in all countries. As of this writing, Pokemon GO has now been made available for the first time in India as well as other Southeast Asian countries including Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal.

The launch of Pokemon GO has been slowed due to the fact Niantic was not prepared for the apps reception by the world. GO initially launched in the Australian region and North America. Servers could not handle the amount of load players were putting on them. In the weeks to come, it was decided that they would periodically launch the game in regions as opposed to a full launch for all regions.

With the final countries now getting Pokemon GO, rumors of these legendary characters will continue to grow. Are you still playing Pokemon GO? How close to completing the Pokedex are you?

[Feature Image by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images]