Trainers, brace yourselves – it’s THE DAY today! Niantic has published an official Instagram and an official Twitter post celebrating amazing Pokemon GO journeys over the past two years, but more importantly, showing Generation IV starters chilling among the currently available Pokemon!
Again, this is an official image, not something that was data mined or discovered in the code base, this is Niantic hinting Gen IV on record for the first time! What a day to be alive! We’re attaching the image below and proceeding to analyse it after:
That’s quite a busy image, so let’s break it down:
Featured characters include two trainers trading, Candela, Spark, Blanche and professor Willow. Judging by the setup, the Trainers are trading Treecko and Ash Hat Pikachu, while Spark and Candela are trading Alolan and normal Vulpix. Blanche is curiously observing an Alolan egg above an unlimited incubator.
Notable Pokemon include Celebi, Mew, legendary beast and bird trios, Latios, Latias and Pokemon that are usually raid exclusives – Mawile and Absol. A lot of the featured Pokemon eventually get mega evolutions. Of course, the list of notable Pokemon wouldn’t be complete without the Gen IV starters:
- Turtwig is hanging out with Totodile and Torchic in the bottom right corner of the image
- Chimchar is climbing one of the sun shade support sticks, just next to Spark
- Piplup is sleeping on Absol’s legs, seemingly too tired to participate in the festivities
Alolan Dugtrio is also there, and there are two Unowns floating around Alolan Exeggutor spelling GO. A creepy Gastly is looking through the side window. A neutral gym is hidden in the background, right behind Blanche.
The official tweet from Pokemon GO
From the first Pokémon you encountered to your first #PokemonGOfriend, we've enjoyed watching all of your amazing Pokémon GO journeys unfold for the past two years. What are some of your most memorable Pokémon GO experiences? Tell us in the comments! pic.twitter.com/IAU7Bvg5uK
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 13, 2018
Parting words
What does this mean? Will Generation IV be released during GO Fest? As of the time of writing this post, there is nothing supporting a GO Fest timed Gen IV release in the code base: no icons, no flags, no IDs, no hardcoded values.
On the other hand, we’re quite sure that Generation IV could be the “Ultra Bonus unlock” , a mysterious bonus Niantic hinted as the post summer events bonus. Stay tuned, a lot is coming our way!
