With the start of the Season of Shared Skies, as usual, we have a new loading screen. This loading screen is created by Akari Sora and is stunning. I just wanted to start off this article with a hats off to the creator because the loading screens never miss, so Akari who is covering paternity leave had big boots to fill. He has totally hit the mark and this is such a work of art. The colours are so vibrant, there’s such an keen attention to detail and just makes me happy even looking at it!
It has such summery vibes and has tonnes of energy and excitement! Let’s deep dive and speculate what we might see this season…
First, going into the season which will see all three location GO Fests and Global GO Fest we know a couple of things!
Shiny Debuts
Lapras, Emolga, Crabrawler and Ducklett are GO Fest promos. Shiny Emolga debuted at GO Fest: Sendai and part of the global Stadium Sights event. Shiny Crabrawler will debut at Madrid and Ducklett at New York.
Elite Raid Day
Mega Rayquaza (behind the leftmost tree, pretty well hidden) is for the upcoming Elite Raid Day on June 29th, which was announced recently in the June Events.
Community Day
We know that the Community Day for June is Goomy, and following the trend of starter shiny releases we should also see Popplio this season. This leaves one community day unknown. Between Toucannon, Horsea and Tympole, one of them is sure to be the non-Popplio Community Day. Personally, I am leaning towards Toucannon – as we had Bounsweet community day last season. In Pokémon lore, Bounsweet’s sweet scent has caused it to be swallowed whole or collected by other Pokémon, especially Toucannon. We saw a shadow of Toucannon in the Bounsweet community day teaser, so it would be great thematically to see a Pikipek community day!
Adventure Week
Kabuto and Tirtouga could be a sign of Adventure Week. We usually see Adventure Week around June/July time so this would fit in perfectly! Adventure week boosts Rock-type and fossil Pokémon, so these ‘mon plus lots of others usually feature.
Usually for Adventure Week we get a shiny debut. In 2022 we saw the Gen 5 fossils, Tirtouga and Archen, have their shiny forms released. Last year we had the Gen 6 shinies released with Amaura and Tyrunt. There are no new fossil ‘mon in Gen 7… so, if we follow this trend we would expect see Gen 8 fossil Pokémon make their Pokémon GO debut during this event.
There are 4 Gen 7 fossil Pokémon: Dracozolt, Dracovish, Arctozolt and Arctovish. However, given there are only 13 ‘mon in the Galar Dex currently – I doubt we are going to see Gen 8 so soon.
With all of the fossil mon available in their shiny forms currently, there will likely have to be something new to keep the event exciting. I might be going a bit off-piste here but maybe we could see shiny Carbink debut?
Other events
We’ve seen 3 Hatch Days so far. Mantyke is part of the egg pool for this season. Could we potentially see a Mantyke Hatch day?
Alternatively, with the amount of Water type Pokémon in this screen we could see a type focused Research day. This would be similar to Flock Together and Charged Up, where there are 5 featured ‘mon. This event could feature Mantyke, Tympole, Finneon, Horsea and Shellder.
Shiny Debuts
Sandygast is chilling on the waterfront by the beach. As a ‘mon that is not part of the seasonal spawns this stands out to me. We saw Sandygast make its Pokémon GO debut a year ago, in June 2023, as part of the Water Festival Event and haven’t seen it feature much since. Sandygast starts off the season by being an event spawn in Slumbering Sands… Is it time for Sandygast to shine (literally!) with the debut of its shiny form?
Other Remarks
After writing all of this, I still can’t get over Lapras being front and centre of this screen, making me think there’s more to it than just the GO Fest promos. Perhaps we could see a Tier 3 raid day later on this season… this would follow the trend of seeing Hisuian Typhlosion, Decidueye and Samurott last season. Maybe we will see the set of Team Leader ‘mon return somehow.
It is interesting to me that the Season of Shared Skies loading screen has a focus on water types, with half of the screen being underwater (get it… sharing the sky). With the name ‘Shared Skies’ we would expect a focus on or even at a push Dragon types! However, the Seasons’ names have been quite random for a while now, and the loading screens tend to follow the real-life (northern hemisphere) seasons so maybe this is not worth looking into too much.
What are your thoughts on the new loading screen? Is there anything I’ve missed or you think could work differently? We would love to hear your thoughts.
