Pokemon Go: Legendary Pokemon are getting even rarer

In recent times Legendary Pokemon have been made what they should have been all along in Pokemon Go – rare.

There was a time in Pokemon Go when getting those legendary ‘mons became all too common and easy. This resulted in it becoming a mundane task – something which getting one should never be.

Research Breakthrough rewards were introduced to the mobile game in April 2018. You can obtain these rewards by earning seven Field Research stamps.

Only one can be earned per day and you get one for completing any Field Research task. As anyone who has completed these before can attest to, they are often very easy to do.

From April 2018 until December 2019, the majority of these months had a Legendary Pokemon waiting for you when you earned those seven stamps. This meant you could earn an encounter with the likes of Moltres, Latios, Groudon – and any other of the litany of legends that featured – for completing seven simple tasks.

If you routinely played, this meant a new Legendary Pokemon every seven days. It was no wonder Legendary Pokemon lost their allure.

Make Legendary Pokemon rare again

From January 2020 though, legendary species no longer featured as the Research Breakthrough encounter reward. Niantic likely realized they were too easy to get and wanted to make getting them mean something again.

Generally, this made them only obtainable in Raid Battles. This made sense because with rare ‘mons so easy to get hold of previously, fewer trainers would spend the time to get them in the more difficult route of Raid Battles. This is in addition to them costing real money/PokeCoins if you did more than one a day.

• Read More: Could Niantic release an unexpected trio of Legendary Pokemon in late October?

It hasn’t stopped there, however. It looks like Niantic want to make them even rarer. Many trainers will have noticed five-star Raids are appearing far less frequently.

This hasn’t been confirmed in any official capacity but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from the Pokemon Go community. “[I] was in an area with over 25 gyms but could only find 2 Giratina during 5 [a] hour period this afternoon,” MarinaBlu shared. They did note a lot more Mega Raids were appearing during that time.

Encouraging Mega Raids?

There could be multiple reasons for this. Firstly, it will make trainers jump on Raid Battles that feature Legendary Pokemon, stopping the often empty lobbies which single trainers have to avoid.

Then there could be an element of wanting to make Legendary Pokemon even more desirable. This is understandable but certainly puts newer players at a disadvantage. After all, experienced trainers will have a lot stocked up. They would argue this is deserved, however, due to the time they have put into the game.

• Read More: Shadow Mewtwo is coming to Pokemon Go for ALL trainers

Finally, it could be Niantic are trying to encourage trainers to play more Mega Raids. The concept of Mega Evolution in Pokemon Go hasn’t been received as well as the developers would have hoped, though.

We don’t know if the reduced five-star Raid Battles will carry on, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.