Pokémon Go’s latest update isn’t what players were expecting. For weeks, fans hoped for a whole batch of 2nd generation Pokémon—bright, adorable Chikoritas or Espeons, and over 90 more little monsters. Or, at least, a few new Pokémon that players could encounter in the wild. Nope. No. Nope.
Yesterday, Pokémon Go released seven new “baby” Pokémon that players can only hatch with eggs. In addition to most of the original 150 monsters, players can now get Magby, Elekid, Smoochum, Pichu, Togepi, Igglybuff and Cleffa (though apparently not Tyrogue, another 2nd gen baby Pokemon) by grabbing new eggs from PokéStops and walking two to ten kilometers. Also, a Santa-hat-wearing Pikachu is now spawning all over. Sound like a nice, satisfying batch of content?
On Pokémon Go subreddits and over social media, those who stuck with mobile game through hellish updates and bad design decisions complain that the seven baby Pokémon are a total bummer, and no hat on any Pikachu can solve that. Also, there’s a bit of a problem with hatching Pokémon eggs in December: trudging 10 km in the snow for an uncertain outcome. Here’s what disappointed fans are saying:
Right now, there are seven and not 100 new Pokémon
Seven is fewer than 100. None of the seven are the wildly popular 2nd generation Eevee evolutions. Umbreon is so lovely. Sigh.
In July, players started reporting that they’d caught all the available Pokémon. To several players, mid-December felt like prime time for a fresh load of Pokémon. And there’s a real reason why fans are expecting one: Dataminers unearthed the trappings of 2nd gen Pokémon in the game’s code weeks ago, a Silph Road representative told me.
To be clear though, players aren’t sure whether the seven egg Pokemon, plus a few 2nd generation evolutions, are the end of the story. When reached for comment, Niantic told me they prefer to keep these things a surprise.
To get them, you have to hatch eggs
It’s a cute idea! But it presents some problems.
First of all, you’ll need to hatch the new Pokémon with new eggs you got post-update—not old ones. But you can’t actually get rid of old eggs to make space. And you can’t un-incubate eggs that are already incubating. So several players report that they’re racing to hatch old eggs and buying (with real cash) new incubators from the Pokémon Go store to better their chances. Yay, capitalism!
To get them, you have to hatch eggs in the Winter
Also, it’s Winter. Hello, snow! What’s better than walking 10 kilometers in the show to hatch a virtual egg that may or may not be Magby? Several things.
Where Are The Legendaries?
Who knows? The first batch of Pokemon we got, which (except Ditto), remained the only batch until Monday, didn’t include legendaries like Mewtwo and Articuno. Dronpes, a representative of Pokémon Go watchdog collective Silph Road, told me that he thinks the legendaries will be released for “more involved events than those like the Starbucks or Sprint collaborations we saw last week” and not for another few weeks, minimum.
Where’s the PvP? Trading? All the other stuff that makes Pokémon.... Pokémon?
Frankly, this seems outside the scope of the update. And a mobile Pokemon-tracking game that can barely handle tracking.