Lugias Return: This article is marked “S” for Speculation. Just to forewarn you that nothing discussed below has been confirmed and is solely the opinion of myself and some others here at GoHub.
Now thats out of the way, let’s begin readers:
Lugias return came as a shock to almost all of the Pokemon Go Community. Whilst everyone was expecting either The Regi-Trio or The Eon Duo to be next in line for legendary raids, Niantic blindsided us all with a return of a previous legendary.
This marks a new era in Pokemon Go as it is the first time that we have seen a previously released Legendary Pokemon make a worldwide return to tier-5 raids (after a considerable break). But what does it mean for the future of Pokemon Go and all those other previous Legendaries? This is something i hope to answer below.
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| Lugia normal color | Lugia shiny color |
2018 – “A Legendary Year”
There was an announcement at the start of 2018 that it would be a “Legendary Year.” This meant that the main series and spin-off games alike would see extra Legendary-orientated events and offers in the future. This in itself leads us to believe that Lugia is only the first of many returning Legendaries this year.
The Next Pokemon Movie
Lugia has previously been announced to be the star of the upcoming Pokemon movie for 2018 and as such, a “Windy-Lugia” was announced for distribution for the main series latest games. It is not clear at this point if the newly re-introduced Lugia ties in directly with the film (as it has the newly improved “Sky-attack,” it would be odd if it wasn’t) or if it is the first of many previous legendaries to make an re-appearance in the game.
Shiny Forms
As we know from Zeroghan’s post here, Lugia is only one of a possible twelve Pokemon that has its Shiny sprite already within the game code. This means that if Niantic choose to re-release another legendary, we can expect its Shiny to be released along with it as well.
Elongating the Game
The trend has already been put in place for us to expect a New Generation of Pokemon towards the end of a year. This means that many are expecting Generation 4 to be released in the last Quarter of 2018. As we know that there are still five more legendary Pokemon left in Generation 3 that are currently unreleased (not including Deoxys,) if we were to have a month of each of those Pokemon as a tier-5 boss, this would only take till August – Which leaves more-than a few weeks/months where it would be possible to re-release the older legendaries for two-weeks at a time in a similar fashion to Lugia.
The curious case of Shiny Party-Hat Pikachu
We know from previous data-mines, that at the time we first saw the hatted Pikachu for Pokemon Days celebration event that the Shiny version of the Pikachu was within the code already and whilst it wasn’t released the first time around, its shiny form saw a release on the second pass, much like Lugia.
Parting Thoughts?
I believe it would be Naive to assume that we won’t see other legendaries make a return this year, also with their shiny forms in tow. Niantic have truly broken to mold and introduced a way to allow players to obtain Lugia (if they previously missed him) and a way to keep older players who already have plenty of Lugias want to battle him again and again for a chance at that sweet red alternative. We advise that you reserve a small amount of optimism for the possibility of more shiny Legendaries later this year.
Let us know what you think about the old legendaries being re-released in the comments below.
