Generation 5 Release: Everything You Need to Know About New Unova Pokemon

Trainers, Pokemon from the Unova region are coming to Pokemon GO! Niantic has just shared a high level overview of which Generation V species will be available in wild encounters, eggs and raids. In an unprecedented move, we are also given the information on which Generation 5 Pokemon are regionally exclusive and where they can be found. Without further ado, let’s dive in.

Official announcement

  • Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, Patrat, Lillipup, Purrloin, Pidove, Blitzle, and more Pokémon originally discovered in the Unova region will be appearing in the wild.
  • Spark has been hard at work walking and incubating Eggs for his research and has found that the following Pokémon have started hatching from Eggs!
    • 2 km Eggs: Patrat, Lillipup, Purrloin, Pidove
    • 5 km Eggs: Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, Blitzle, Drilbur, Foongus
    • 10 km Eggs: Ferroseed, Klink, Litwick, Golett, Deino
  • After tackling dozens of raids head on, Candela has discovered that Lillipup, Patrat, and Klink will be available to challenge in raids! Please note, Trainers, that Klink hasn’t been reported appearing in the wild outside raids.
  • Following some travel and meticulous research, Blanche reports that there are some Pokémon that only seem to be appearing in the wild in certain parts of the world! Join us in welcoming them!
    • Asia-Pacific: Pansage, the Grass Monkey Pokémon
    • Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India: Pansear, the High Temp Pokémon
    • The Americas and Greenland: Panpour, the Spray Pokémon
    • Western hemisphere: Heatmor, the Anteater Pokémon
    • Eastern hemisphere: Durant, the Iron Ant Pokémon
  • If you’re lucky, you may encounter Shiny Patrat and Shiny Lillipup!
  • Introducing the Unova Stone! This black-and-white Evolutionary item will allow certain Pokémon to evolve. Try using it on a Pokémon like Lampent, and see what happens! This item can be obtained from Research Breakthroughs.

Infographic

By Couple of Gaming
By Couple of Gaming

Unova Pokemon in the wild

The first Generation V wave brings Unowa starters and common Pokemon to wild encounters. Patrat, Pidove, Lillipup are all reminiscent of Gen 1’s Rattata and Pidgey, while Purrloin and Blitzle add some excitement to the new pool of wild Pokemon. Everyone gets excited to see a shadow on the nearby tab, and we’re super excited to go outside once again!

Available in wild encounters
Snivy Tepig Oshawott
Patrat Lillipup Purrloin
Pidove Blitzle
  • Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott are all interesting catches. As starters, they’re guaranteed to be featured in a future Community Day, so be sure to keep the ones with strong IVs and high Level
  • Patrat, Pidove, Lillipup and Purrloin are all “grassland” Pokemon similar to Pidgey and Rattata, we don’t expect anyone to be super excited about catching them
  • Blitzle is very similar to Electrike and Manectric, both in terms of typing and stat distribution. We expect it to be rather rare, on par with Unova starters

Unova Pokemon in eggs

A large number of new Gen V Pokemon can only be obtained by hatching Eggs, at least for the time being. There are 15 new Pokemon species hatching from Eggs, with the 2 km group being also fully available in the wild. 5 km and 10 km Eggs allow you to hatch seven Pokemon that are not listed as wild encounters:

Available in eggs
2 km Eggs
Patrat Lillipup Purrloin
Pidove
5 km Eggs
Snivy Tepig Oshawott
Blitzle Drilbur Foongus
10 km Eggs
Ferroseed Klink Litwick
Golett Deino
  • According to a recent article written by Kratos – Gen 5 move update: Generation 5 PvE winners and losers – Chandelure is one of the strongest surprises in the recent Gen V moveset update. We speculate that Litwick Candy will be highly sought after, so make sure to walk a Litwick as soon as you hatch one
  • Ferroseed has the unusual Grass / Steel typing which could make it very competitive in PvP. It fits a similar niche to Foretress, and it remains to be seen what folks can do with it.
  • Klink will be available in Raids and Eggs, making it one of the easier to obtain Unova Pokemon. We’ll see how it fares in PvP, but we don’t expect a lot.
  • Golett is one of the craziest Unova Pokemon, as it’s essentially a piece of clay inhabited by a ghost. It’s Ground and Ghost typing follows this description along nicely, and it’s evolution (Golruk) looks like an interesting Gym defender.
  • Deino is a super interesting hatch as it fits a similar niche to Dratini and Larvitar – it’s a strong, three strange evolution that gives you a pseudo legendary Pokemon at the end: Hydreigon. Hydreigon has the potential to end up as a slightly higher DPS version of Tyranitar.

Unova Pokemon in raids

Only three Gen V Pokemon will be showing up in raids, but each of them is “raid pass worthy” as all of them can be shiny and Klink is not available in the wild! It will be interesting to see how shiny rates for Lillipup and Patrat work across the different methods of obtaining them.

Available in raids
Lillipup Patrat Klink

Region exclusive Gen 5 Pokemon

Generation V Region exclusives are as follows:

Region Pokemon
Asia-Pacific Pansage
Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India Pansear
The Americas and Greenland Panpour
Western hemisphere Heatmor
Eastern hemisphere Durant
  • The Prime Meridian divides the globe into Eastern and Western hemispheres, just as the equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern hemispheres. The Prime Meridian, as it passes through Greenwich, England, is considered 0 degrees longitude.
  • Pansage, Pansear and Panpour can evolve! This marks the first time that we’re having evolution capable region exclusive Pokemon in Pokemon GO. Region boundaries for these Pokemon are quite clear.

Unova Stone

Unova Stone
Unova Stone

Unova Stone is a new evolution item available from Research Breakthroughs. Unova Stone is a requirement for evolving select Generation V Pokemon (Lampent), but the complete list of species is not yet known.

This is quite interesting, as Lampent evolves into Chandelure only when exposed to a Dusk Stone in older Pokemon games. If Unova Stone is used for all item dependent evolutions in Gen V, it could be a very valuable item.

We have created a specialized page for the Unova Stone which will be updated later today.


Parting words

Although there’s a lot to work through here, the initial Gen V release is a teaser for more things to come. We’re surprised by Niantic’s decision to announce regionally exclusive Generation 5 Pokemon, but we don’t think that’s a bad thing. Sure, it takes away some of the initial excitement for discovering their habitats, but it brings a lot of clarity from day one.

Is five region exclusive Pokemon too much? We don’t think so, as each region has access to at least two of them, and traveling to another region can net you two new regionals. It’s a higher stake game than previous generations, but we do think the difficulty of obtaining them remains roughly the same.