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Shadow and Purified Pokémon, Team Rocket, PokéStop Invasions, Route Maker and 3 New Moves coming to Pokemon GO

June 26, 2019

Contents

Trainers, hold on to your seats, the hype train is about to depart once again for Pokémon GO! A new update, version number 0.147.1 is rolling out to Android and iOS devices and it contains hints of a new type of Pokémon (Shadow and Purified Pokemon) and a completely new way to play Pokémon GO – Invasions! Team Rocket is also present and GO Hub is bringing you an in-depth look at the hidden code discovered in this Pokémon GO update.

Please be aware that nothing written here is endorsed or confirmed by Niantic and everything is subject to last minute changes. Code dumps and APK analysis are always finicky business, especially this one. With that being said, you’ve been warned. Let’s dive in!

Official change log

0.147.1 fixes problems with Adventure Sync rewards

New features discovered by data miners in 0.147.1

Invasions: a new type of game play that seems to tie with Shadow Pokémon and Team Rocket. Invasions feature NPCs and take place at PokéStops, as Team Rocket can overtake a Pokestop.
Shadow Pokemon: a new form of Pokémon that have their own stats, move values, candy and Stardust multipliers.
Purification: a new mechanic to apparently convert a Shadow Pokémon into it’s normal version, needs Stardust and Candy to work.
Pokémon alignments: can be Shadow or Purified right now
Three new moves: Frustration, Return and Synchronise
Two new badges: badges for the number of Pokémon Purified and Team Rocket Grunts defeated
Two new Quest types: Battle Team Rocket and Purify Pokémon quests
A new item: Route Maker

Everything we know about Shadow and Purified Pokémon

The following Pokemon can be encountered as shadow Pokémon and then purified:

List of Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon GO
Rattata	Raticate	Zubat
Golbat	Bulbasaur	Ivysaur
Venusaur	Charmander	Charmeleon
Charizard	Squirtle	Wartortle
Blastoise	Dratini	Dragonair
Dragonite	Snorlax	Crobat
Mudkip	Marshtomp	Swampert

Shadow Pokémon feature a new property called Alignment which is similar to Gender and Form. Alignment can be Shadow or Purified and there is a badge tied with the number of Pokémon you purified.

In order to Purify a Shadow Pokemon you need to spend Candy and Stardust. These two items are multiplied values of an existing cost value on that Pokémon, presumably tied with its level, but it’s too early to confirm that.

Each Shadow and Purified Pokémon has the following fields that describe it entirely (from Purification perspective):

.PurificationStardustNeeded
.PurificationCandyNeeded
.PurifiedChargeMove
.ShadowChargeMove

It’s worth noting that Shadow and Purified forms are handled in the same way as various Deoxys forms: own stats, own moves, etc… We could be in for a wild ride with these ones!

The official Bulbapedia description of Shadow Pokemon is pretty intriguing tho:

Shadow Pokémon (Japanese: ダークポケモン Dark Pokémon) are Pokémon that are being used for wrongful acts because they had the doors to their hearts shut artificially, a process created and carried out by Cipher in the Orre region. Collecting Shadow Pokémon through snagging and restoring them to normal by purifying them is the main goal of Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness.

Curiously, the most iconic Shadow Pokémon is Shadow Lugia, which is not mentioned in the APK yet:

Everything we know about Invasions

Invasions are a new game mode that’s coming to Pokémon GO, carving out a new niche alongside Raids and Field Research.

.INVASION

Right now it seems that the Invasions take place on top of PokéStops on the overworld map. Team Rocket apparently takes over a PokéStop and you are tasked with fighting them off. The Invasions seem to be designed as staged encounters with a Grunt that uses Pokémon of a particular type. There weren’t a lot of hints that Invasions support multiplayer features, but it is not off the table.

.EnumWrapper
.PokestopStyle
.POKESTOP_NORMAL
.POKESTOP_ROCKET_INVASION
.POKESTOP_ROCKET_VICTORY

The error handlers and code snippets inside the APK reveal a lot more about Pokémon GO Invasions:

There are three main parts of every invasion:
- Battle stage
- Pokemon encounter stage
- Purification stage
There is a minimum level for participating in Invasions
You have to have free space in your Pokemon storage
Invasions have a timer and they can “expire”
There is a Pokemon encounter at the end of the Invasion
There are multiple references to “number of Pokéballs” on the grunt and on the remaining Pokémon – we’re not sure what this entails, but it seems to be heavily based around capture mechanics
There are hints of solo invasions: .SOLO_INVASION

The following NPCs can be encountered in Invasion scenarios:

Team Leaders: Blanche, Spark and Candela
Team Rocket Grunts: grunts are organized by the type of Pokémon they use (Fire, Water, Grass etc…) and there are male and female grunts.

Characters in Pokemon GO invasions
`.InvasionCharacter` `BLANCHE` `CANDELA` `SPARK` `GRUNT MALE` `GRUNT FEMALE` `BUG GRUNT FEMALE` `BUG GRUNT MALE` `DARKNESS GRUNT FEMALE` `DARKNESS GRUNT MALE` `DARK GRUNT FEMALE` `DARK GRUNT MALE` `DRAGON GRUNT FEMALE` `DRAGON GRUNT MALE` `FAIRY GRUNT FEMALE` `FAIRY GRUNT MALE` `FIGHTING GRUNT FEMALE` `FIGHTING GRUNT MALE` `FIRE GRUNT FEMALE` `FIRE GRUNT MALE`	`FLYING GRUNT FEMALE` `FLYING GRUNT MALE` `GROUND GRUNT FEMALE` `GROUND GRUNT MALE` `ICE GRUNT FEMALE` `ICE GRUNT MALE` `METAL GRUNT FEMALE` `METAL GRUNT MALE` `NORMAL GRUNT FEMALE` `NORMAL GRUNT MALE` `POISON GRUNT FEMALE` `POISON GRUNT MALE` `PSYCHIC GRUNT FEMALE` `PSYCHIC GRUNT MALE` `ROCK GRUNT FEMALE` `ROCK GRUNT MALE` `WATER GRUNT FEMALE` `WATER GRUNT MALE` `PLAYER TEAM LEADER` `GRASS GRUNT FEMALE` `GRASS GRUNT MALE`

Everything we know about the three new moves

Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot. We know that three new moves are coming and we know the official main series games’ descriptions from Bulbapedia:

Frustration Normal – Frustration inflicts damage and has no secondary effect. The base power of Frustration is dependent on the user’s friendship. The lower the user’s friendship is, the greater the base power of Frustration.
Return Normal – Return inflicts damage and has no secondary effect. The base power of Return is dependent on the friendship of the user. The greater the user’s friendship, the greater the base power.
Synchronise Psychic – Synchronoise damages all adjacent Pokémon with the same type as the user. If the user is a dual-type Pokémon, it will damage all Pokémon with either of the user’s types.

But outside of these descriptions we are really clueless about these moves.

The Route Maker

The Route Maker is a baffling new item that we simply can’t explain. There are only two traces of code that reference it and it is not mentioned anywhere else in the update

.ITEM_TYPE_ROUTE_MAKER
.ITEM_CATEGORY_ROUTE_MAKER

If we had to take a wild guess, maybe this has something to do with an upcoming feature that resembles Ingress missions. That would be amazing, but it’s just our guess!

Parting words

It seems that Pokémon GO is about to go into a complete new hype mode with Team Rocket, new Pokémon, new mechanics, new items and completely new game play coming along. We haven’t seen this one coming, despite Team Rocket being featured on the Chicago GO Fest 2019 event. Stay tuned, follow us on Twitter and we’ll update you as we find more information about this incredibly exciting feature!