‘Pokémon Go’ Legendary Raids: Fans speculate about how they could be implemented in-game

Legendary Pokémon are something of a white whale for Pokémon Go players. They’ve been teased since the game’s initial trailer, Niantic hints at them a lot, and they recently showed up in both the game’s code and the Indian App Store. So, where are they?

Fans speculate we might see them at the Chicago live event, but the community is long on hypotheticals and short on details. But that hasn’t stopped them from speculating about what Legendary raids would look like in-game.

Pokémon Go legendary raids: Fans theorize about how legendary tier 5 raids will work

Speculation for tier five legendary raids arose in a thread started by Farewell18 on the Silph Road. Although the content of Farewell18’s original post has since been removed — the Silph Road tends to moderate speculation posts that aren’t intensively researched — players still sounded off about what they hoped or expected for the eventual update.

One poster said they expected legendary raids to be tied to events or specific days. While linking legendaries to events would cut down on the number of spoofers getting legendaries, they acknowledged the tradeoff would be continuing to sideline rural trainers.

Trainers also speculated about how legendary raids would fit into the existing system. A poster named Angelligent argued legendary raids might require a new type of raid pass and said they hoped Niantic might make legendary raids stick around for longer in order to compensate for the (hypothetical) increased price of these new passes.

Still, another poster contended it was more likely legendary raids would simply use the existing raid pass system, a reasonable assumption given that raid passes already come in two flavors.

Finally, players were split on exactly how many legendaries players should be able to hold at once. The prevailing notion among posters was that players should only be able to hold one of each legendary, with subsequent catches rewarding you with candies or a superior IV version. Another poster named cxerophim disagreed, saying that just because legendaries have been single catch in the main series games, there’s no reason to continue that trend in Pokémon Go.

We’ll hopefully get some concrete answers soon, and in the meantime, we’re likely to reach peak speculation.

More Pokémon Go news, updates, tips and tricks

Raids are here! See why they may be the key to legendary Pokémon. Find out how to determine how long it will take you to reach level 40, and see what we think of the Gen 2 Pokémon added to the game. Here are the kinds of Pokémon you get from 10-kilometer eggs, and here’s where you can check out what you missed during the Water Festival and Solstice events. Find out more about the upcoming Chicago event and why you’ll probably be able to catch Unown while you’re there — if you’re not busy searching for rare evolutionary items, that is.