Niantic announces new Pokemon Go Hoenn Tour shinies are locked behind 10k eggs

Zackerie Fairfax
pokemon go missing shinies

Pokemon Go Hoenn Tour has started to kick off in the eastern parts of the world. Players are already disappointed by an announcement from Niantic that three highly-anticipated new Shinies are locked behind 10k eggs.

Pokemon Go Hoenn Tour is the third annual event featuring one of the regions in the Pokemon world. 2021 featured Kanto, followed by Johto in 2022, and now it’s Hoenn’s time to shine in February 2023.

The event boasted an increased chance to encounter gen 3 Pokemon and introduced 12 new Shiny forms that weren’t obtainable until this event. And these include fan favorites such as Kecleon, Jirachi, and Relicanth.

However, as the event began to roll out to the far eastern portion of the world, players were confused as to why a few of the Pokemon with new Shiny forms weren’t appearing in the wild. Niantic then apologized for the confusion before crushing trainers’ dreams.

New Pokemon Go Shiny forms locked behind 10k eggs

Three of the new Shiny forms that were introduced via Pokemon Go Hoenn Tour are Torkoal, Tropius, and Relicanth. And while the official event page stated these Pokemon could be found by hatching 10k eggs, players assumed they’d also be found in the wild.

This led to confusion as these three Pokemon were nowhere to be found in the overworld when the event started. This led to droves of players reaching out to Niantic via social media which caused them to respond.

“Trainers, we’d like to clarify that Relicanth, Tropius and Torkoal, the featured regional Pokémon during Pokémon GO Tour – Global, will only be available in 10km Eggs and not in the wild. We apologize for the confusion,” the Niantic Support Twitter posted.

This wasn’t received well by players. Many pointed out how there were no reduced egg distance bonuses during the event, meaning they’d have to walk the fill 10k to hatch a handful of eggs (or one at a time for those without spare incubators).

Others complained that they weren’t receiving 10k eggs from Pokestops, and their inventories were filled with 2k and 5k eggs. And one player questioned why they weren’t rewards for Field Research like they were in Las Vegas.

So, for players wanting to get their hands on these new Shiny Pokemon, there’s a lot of walking in store for you this weekend.

About The Author

Zackerie is a former Senior Writer for Dexerto who covered a wide variety of games and entertainment. He has a degree in Creative Writing and was previously the editor of The LaRue County News. Zackerie switched to games media in 2020 writing for outlets such as Screen Rant, Fortnite INTEL, and Charlie INTEL.