Pokemon Go Update Adds Gen 4 Pokemon, But You Can't Catch Them Just Yet

Niantic has begun rolling out a new update for Pokemon Go. This one makes a number of quality-of-life improvements to the game, such as giving players the ability to select multiple Pokemon when getting ready to battle at a Gym or in a Raid, but the most exciting addition the patch notes tease is the arrival of Gen 4 Pokemon.

Niantic confirmed earlier this week that Gen 4 Pokemon--those originally introduced in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum for DS--were on their way to Pokemon Go, but the latest patch notes suggest they'll begin appearing in the wild soon. While none are available to capture just yet, the Pokemon Go subreddit The Silph Road discovered that all 107 Gen 4 Pokemon are already in Go's code.

Of course, despite the fact that Niantic has added all of the Gen 4 Pokemon to the game, it remains to be seen whether most of them will begin appearing at once, or if the developer will gradually stagger their release. Such was the case with Gen 3 Pokemon, which Niantic added to the game in waves over the course of several months.

This presumably also means that many more Raid Battles are on the way, as Gen 4 introduced a large number of Legendary Pokemon to the series. We got a brief glimpse at one of these--Giratina--in the announcement trailer above, which also featured the Sinnoh starter Pokemon Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup in their natural habitat.

Niantic has yet to announce when the new Pokemon will begin appearing in the game or when the first Gen 4 Raid will take place, but we'll undoubtedly hear more soon. Those aren't the only new Pokemon players will be able to get, either. The Pokemon Company recently revealed more details about Meltan, the strange new Mythical Pokemon that (kind of) debuted after September's Community Day event. Among other things, we learned how players will be able to catch Meltan, which involves connecting Pokemon Go with either Let's Go, Pikachu or Let's Go, Eevee for Nintendo Switch.