Pokemon Go: When Does Moltres Start Spawning in Raid Battles?

Pokemon Go players everywhere are excited to start taking down Moltres in Raid Battles. So where exactly is Moltres right now? When will it start spawning?

UPDATE: Moltes has now been added to Pokemon Go. It ended up spawning at about 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. 

Niantic had previously announced that Moltres would start appearing in Raid Battles on July 31st, replacing Articuno. However, it’s July 31st now, yet players all around the world are still seeing Articuno show up in Raid Battles instead of Moltres. Clearly, then, Niantic did not set things up so that Moltres would automatically replace Articuno once it became July 31st in a player’s local time. That means the company probably has to flip the switch today, and this would need to happen during normal business hours in California, where Niantic is located.

Previous major events in Pokemon Go have typically happened around either 1:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, and so it’s reasonable to assume that Moltres will start appearing close to one of these times. This is mainly just speculation based on Niantic’s history, but they have certainly exhibited a pattern of launching things either in the early afternoon or at the very end of the work day.

Keep in mind that in Niantic’s original announcement about when the legendary birds would be available, they said that Articuno would be in the game until July 31st; they didn’t say it would be available until July 30th. This was likely meant to indicate that there would be some overlap and that Articuno would not disappear exactly at midnight. Rather, there would be a few hours on July 31st when Articuno was still available, only for it to be replaced by Moltres later in the day. Indeed, that seems to be what’s happening now.

Either way, we know that Moltres is scheduled to be released today, but unfortunately, Niantic has not provided any more information about when this might happen, so players are just going to have to hang tight and hope for some updates from the company soon. A representative from Fortyseven Communications, the agency that represents Niantic, told Heavy in an email that players should stay tuned to the official Pokemon Go Twitter account for updates. Niantic will probably send out an official announcement soon, and so if you want to be notified about the release of Moltres the moment it happens, you can set up a Twitter notification for yourself by going to @PokemonGoApp and selecting “turn on mobile notifications” from the drop down menu.

Until then, these next few hours can be used as one last chance to catch Articuno if you haven’t already, as this legendary bird is going away after July 31st; Niantic has not announced when or if it will return. Articuno was added at the conclusion of Pokemon Go Fest, during which Team Mystic caught the most Pokemon. Now, Moltres will replace Articuno for a week, and then Zapdos will replace Moltres for a week. Meanwhile, Lugia remains in Raid Battles, and Niantic has not announced any date when this Pokemon will no longer be available.

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