Along with rolling out the Rival's Week challenge, Pokémon GO, Niantic is adding two new Pokémon to the augmented reality mobile game's Pokédex. The title has remained incredibly popular throughout the last 12 months despite the COVID-19 pandemic, offering features and incentives for players to play at home. The latest example of this is that Pokémon GO is giving out free Remote Raid Passes to its users throughout April.
Players have already been able to experience several Spring-themed events in Pokémon GO as part of the celebrations of the weather becoming warmer. The first wave of changes added some Easter surprises for players, with creatures like Buneary, Marill, Exeggcute, Pikachu, and Bunnelby all appearing more frequently and having special shiny forms. Players could also take advantage of boosted Lucky Eggs and bonus hatch candy.
Pokémon GO developer Niantic has confirmed that two new creatures will be arriving next week in the form of Skrelp and Clauncher. The first is a Poison/Water Pokémon and the second is a straight Water-type, with both first introduced to the series in Gen VI. The two Pokémon will come to the mobile title alongside the Rivals' Week challenge, which runs from April 1 until April 18. As part of the special event the likes of Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Makuhita, Meditite, Zangoose, and Seviper will also appear more often, and special Pokémon like Nidoqueen and Nidoking will appear in Raids. The event is also set to bring back Therian Forme Landorus to Five-Star Raids.
Developer Niantic shows no signs of stopping, as it emerged that the Pokémon GO studio has entered into a new partnership with Nintendo to create even more augmented reality games based on the company's biggest franchises. The first project that will release as part of this new agreement is a Pikmin mobile game, which will feature similar walking-focused gameplay mechanics to Pokémon GO. However, from the information that has been revealed so far, it appears as if the upcoming game will be far less involved for users than its Pokémon-themed counterpart.
One of the reasons that Pokémon GO has remained so popular since its release five years ago is that the developer continues to constantly update it with new features and content. This latest update is just the latest example of this, with the additional Pokémon allowing players to further expand their collections and pass the time with another themed event.
Pokémon GO is available on iOS and Android.
Source: Niantic