‘Pokemon Go’ Starbucks Event: New Pokemon Coming December 8th?

(Niantic)

‘Pokemon Go’ is available for iOS and Android devices. (Niantic)

New Pokemon may be coming to Pokemon Go this Thursday.

In the Pokemon Go online community, rumors about a Starbucks-related event have continued to spread. This all began a few weeks ago when a Reddit user claiming to work for the coffee chain posted an apparent internal memo about an upcoming Pokemon Go event. A Starbucks tie-in on its own would not normally be of much interest, but that memo also suggested the promo might include the launch of new Pokemon.

Now, more information has surfaced regarding this potential Starbucks event. On the Pokemon Go subreddit today, a user posted what they say is an image of Starbucks’ promotions page that was only shared with employees. It says that Pokemon and Starbucks are collaborating on a new update to be released on Thursday, December 8th; most Starbucks locations will become Poke Stops if they aren’t already, and those who stop by and are playing the app can order a special drink.

But the noteworthy part is that the supposed promotion reads, “The world of Pokemon GO is about to expand with new Pokemon and a new Starbucks beverage.” The key phrase there would, of course, be “new Pokemon.”

So is there any legitimacy to this, or is it another baseless Internet rumor? This new image is at least a lot more believable than the first Reddit post, which just came in the form of text that could have easily been written by anyone. A random Reddit user could also have put this memo together in Photoshop, but it certainly looks real, and a second user later backed up the claim and posted a screenshot apparently from the actual Starbucks employee webpage. One notable inconsistency, though, is that the first rumor claimed the event was happening on December 7th, whereas this one says it’s happening on December 8th.

The explanation that the most optimistic of fans have pointed to is that this event will include the launch of the second generation of Pokemon. After all, the first memo made reference to “Pokemon Go version two,” and this one says that there will be new Pokemon coming. If that’s not in reference to the second generation, it could also be related to the legendary birds, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. Or perhaps it could be the launch of Mew and/or Mewtwo, hence the purple colored drink? Another option is that players will see something incredibly lame like a Starbucks-related Pokemon specifically created for this event.

While it might sound strange for Niantic to launch new Pokemon out of nowhere in this way, that’s pretty much what they did with Ditto. Players had been searching for Ditto since the game launched in July, and then at the end of November, out of nowhere Ditto started popping up with no fanfare or official announcement from Niantic. It wasn’t until later that they even confirmed that this wasn’t some sort of strange glitch. Randomly springing a whole generation of Pokemon on players without any warning would certainly be in character for them.

Check back in this Thursday to find out if there are new Pokemon coming to Pokemon Go or if three Reddit users spent an inappropriate amount of time faking a Starbucks promotional event just to disappoint strangers.