There’s one day left in Pokemon GO’s second annual Halloween event, which saw the release of a handful of Gen 3 Pokemon, but I’m starting to wonder about GO’s second annual Thanksgiving event, which would be in a little less than a month.
Specifically, I think there’s a very good chance that this upcoming event, though it hasn’t been announced yet, will bring with it the release of the last remaining Legendary Pokémon that hasn’t yet been seen in the game, Ho-Oh.
Last year’s Thanksgiving event wasn’t called that, but it took place over the holiday and offered players small bonuses like double XP and Stardust. My hunch is that it’s going to be a little more substantive this time around (though keep the double Stardust) and Ho-Oh may be on the menu. Why?
Here’s the evidence I see for this happening.
- 3D assets for Ho-Oh have just been added into the game, alongside Celebi. Celebi may show up as well, but my guess is that Niantic may save him (her?) for a joint Mythic event with Mew and Gen 3 stuff down the line.
- Ho-Oh recently had its CP values and stats nerfed, which is what happens before a Pokémon is ready for release. We saw this happen with Mewtwo and he was launched practically the next day. In short, Ho-Oh is ready to go between its in-game values and its in-game assets.
- The Thanksgiving event will be right at the conclusion of the last rotation of the Legendary Beasts around the world. Ho-Oh is the last Legendary Pokémon that has not appeared in the game yet, so it would make sense for it to show up as the beasts wind down.
- Niantic has said outright that the next time we’ll see more Gen 3 Pokémon released will be in December, which may very well be the full release of Gen 3, if the Gen 2 launch is any kind of an indicator. It would make sense for Niantic to want to finish releasing the Gen 1/2 Legendaries before the game turns its attention to a bunch of new Gen 3 Pokémon. They obviously didn’t do that with Gen 1 initially, but that was before a delivery mechanism (raids) was in place.
- Ho-Oh kind of looks like a turkey.
So there it is, my foolproof evidence that a Ho-Oh Thanksgiving is coming.
I mean, it’s clearly not a guarantee, but it makes a lot of sense, given that Ho-Oh is quite literally ready to go with the press of a button at this point, Thanksgiving will be a new event since it was last year, and Gen 3 is arriving in some form in December just as every other Gen 1/2 legendary has made its way into the game to this point. Except for Ho-Oh.
I have heard some rumblings about how people believe that Ho-Oh might show up as an alternative to Mewtwo in an Exclusive Raid. I really, really hope that isn’t the case, and it wouldn’t make much sense given that A) its counterpart Lugia was released in normal raids and B) the entire Mewtwo EX raid situation has been pretty awful and Niantic still does not really seem to have a handle on how EX raids should work (hint: they shouldn’t exist at all).
Dropping Ho-Oh in that pool when Mewtwo is still beta testing feels like the wrong move for sure, and I don’t imagine that will happen. But anything’s possible, I suppose.
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