Pokemon GO Dataminers Find Code Referencing Legendary Pokemon
There are a few lines of code in the new Pokemon GO update that reference Legendary Pokemon. Dataminers discovered this while poring through the code of the new Gym update, which also introduced Raid Battles. So far, there isn’t much information on how the Legendary Pokemon can work, but there are some hypotheses floating about.
As soon as the Pokemon GO Gym and Raid Battle Update dropped, dataminers dove in and started sifting through the code with a fine-tooth comb. They found a lot of interesting stuff, compiled it and Reddit user dronpes posted it on the Sylph Road subreddit.
There’s a ton of hints about interesting and helpful new features that will eventually find their way into the game. However, the big eye-catcher in the list are the Legendary Battles. The dataminers have found code that references Legendary Pokemon directly. There’s not a lot to go by, but it’s certainly enough to make trainers excited. Here’s what they got:
- NumLegendaryBattleWon (in player stats)
- NumLegendaryBattleTotal (in player stats)
- Legendary Raid Ticket item
- Legendary Battles Won badge
- ERROR_LEGENDARY_POKEMON deployment error
So, what exactly does this information tell us? Well, for one, we know that Legendary Pokemon will pop up in Raid Battles. As the post points out, we don’t know exactly under which circumstances the Legendaries will appear. Whatever the case, trainers will get a new badge for winning Legendary Battles. However, to participate in these raids, you might need that Legendary Raid ticket.
As we’ve mentioned in our Pokemon GO Raid Battles & New Gym Features Revealed, you’ll need a ticket to participate in any raid. They’ll drop like normal items, but Niantic has mentioned Premium Tickets that we’ll have to buy from the in-game store. Whether Legendary Raid tickets will also drop from PokeStops or if they can only be purchased remains to be seen.
Finally, the deployment error might mean that trainers won’t be able to deploy Legendary Pokemon in Gyms. In the post, dronpes points out that this could be an anti-cheat measure, since cheaters and bots often somehow manage to suss out rare Pokemon. If this turns out to be true, it will also undermine the value of bot accounts on the black market. Considering that Niantic is cracking down on cheaters by marking them and making their Pokemon act weird, the limitation does make sense.
