With this week’s relatively slow news cycle, we are doing a quick recap and comment on recent data mining discoveries. As always, please note that information extracted from data can always change and is not endorsed by Niantic.
Techno Blast strings added
Genesect
Techno Blast is the characteristic movement of Genesect whose type depends on the object that Genesect has. Well, at least those are the games from the main series. In Pokémon GO, we get different forms of Genesect that probably influence the type of Techno Blast.
Recently, data miners detected two things:
- Added translation strings for Techno Blast and …
- … It looks like Techno Blast will actually be 5 different versions of the same move (the move identifier goes from 336 to 340).
RESOURCE ID: move_name_0336 TEXT: Techno Blast RESOURCE ID: move_name_0337 TEXT: Techno Blast RESOURCE ID: move_name_0338 TEXT: Techno Blast RESOURCE ID: move_name_0339 TEXT: Techno Blast RESOURCE ID: move_name_0340 TEXT: Techno Blast
The timing of this addition seems pretty random, as we are not aware of any upcoming events that are scheduled to feature Genesect. Could it be an upcoming 2021 release? Honestly, we have no idea, time will tell.
Costumes, clothes and avatar poses for the 2020 festivities pushed
The next Pokémon GO 2020 holiday event is scheduled to begin on December 22 and a handful of Pokémon will be getting new forms in disguise. Costumes range from a new Pikachu variant with a hat to a crazy “Slowbro 2021” wearing the new 2021 party sunglasses! That’s one way to make a statement while defending a gym 🕶️.
In addition to the new Pokémon costumes, we will have new clothes and avatar poses. These are great if you like ugly sweaters and boots. We are, so approval for new clothes!
Collection challenge chains added
A handful of chains have been introduced describing collection challenges and collection challenge missions. It’s still unclear what they will cover, but the expectation is that you will have to catch a number of Pokémon that are normally found in that collection to complete the challenge.
The jury is still out on this, as the wording of the search texts hints that the collections could cover more than the region-based collections. Perhaps Niantic is building infrastructure for a future event-based collecting challenge: Collecting all the Pokemon in disguise from Holiday 2020 for one collection? I really have no idea, speculate in the comment section.
RESOURCE ID: kanto_collection_name
TEXT: Kanto Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: johto_collection_name
TEXT: Johto Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: hoenn_collection_name
TEXT: Hoenn Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: sinnoh_collection_name
TEXT: Sinnoh Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: unova_collection_name
TEXT: Unova Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: kalos_collection_name
TEXT: Kalos Collection Challenge
RESOURCE ID: quest_complete_minicollect_plural
TEXT: Complete {0} Collection Challenges
RESOURCE ID: quest_complete_minicollect_singular
TEXT: Complete a Collection Challenge
And that’s it – not much else has been introduced to the game, it’s also holiday and vacation season at Niantic. Until next time, see you!
