Pokemon Go: Which Legendaries Will Appear in Raid Battles?

Niantic Pokemon Go is available for iOS and Android devices.

Legendaries are about to be released in Pokemon Go. 

Niantic announced on its website today that following Pokemon Go Fest Chicago this Saturday, legendary Pokemon will begin appearing in Raid Battles around the world. But which legendaries, exactly? Is Niantic releasing every single legendary at once? Or are they rolling them out in phases?

Well, it seems that what’s going to happen is that at Pokemon Go Fest Chicago, one specific legendary will appear. If players in Chicago successfully defeat this legendary, that species will start showing up in Raid Battles everywhere.

“If the Trainers in Chicago succeed in defeating the Legendary Pokémon, that Pokémon will start appearing in Raid Battles around the world, after Pokémon GO Fest,” Niantic writes in its announcement.

This legendary appearing in the game will apparently last two days, as Niantic had previously announced a “mystery challenge” to be unlocked after Pokemon Go Fest that would last from July 23rd to July 24th if Chicago completes its own challenge. We can now assume that this was referring to the release of a legendary Pokemon. The trailer for legendaries released on Thursday shows that the countdown timer to a legendary Raid Battle lasts 48 hours, meaning that if legendary eggs started appearing immediately after Pokemon Go Fest ends on Saturday evening, they would start hatching on Monday.

Presumably, after this special challenge on Sunday and Monday, more legendaries will be made available around the world than just this specific one. After all, Niantic did announce that “Legendary Pokemon are nearly here,” not “a Legendary Pokemon is nearly here.”

It’s not 100 percent clear which legendaries will become available first. But there are 11 legendary/mythical Pokemon that are a part of generation one and two, and of those 11, six appear in the new trailer released on Thursday. Those six are:

• Articuno
• Moltres
• Zapdos
• Articuno
• Ho-Oh
• Lugia

From this, we can conclude that Niantic probably isn’t releasing one generation of legendaries before another, as Pokemon from the first and second generation are both seen in this launch trailer. It’s also notable that only the birds show up in this trailer, and so it may be that these are the creatures that Niantic is starting off legendary Raid Battles with, planning to expand to the rest at a later date.

Also showing up in this trailer is Mewtwo, seen at the very end flying into the distance; Mewtwo isn’t seen participating in a raid, though, so that might just be a tease of what’s to come in the future. Mewtwo is, however, seen participating in a Raid Battle in the game’s original trailer.

The following Pokemon are not in today’s trailer for legendary Raid Battles at all:

• Mew
• Raikou
• Entei
• Suicune
• Celebi

Stay tuned for more information this Saturday about which is the first legendary to appear in Pokemon Go.