Niantic’s plans for the future of Field Research in Pokémon GO are clear, and it’s a move players expected after getting the same prize week after week.
Yesterday, Niantic announced that starting on May 1st, Pokémon GO Field Research tasks will expand to include ones focusing on flying and electric types. There is also an image of Professor Willow next to a Zapdos so…I think it’s not too much of a leap to see what’s implied here.
Zapdos will be replacing Moltres as the legendary reward for completing a streak of Field Research tasks. Players were a bit confused when they kept getting Moltres encounters week after week, but it seems pretty clear now that Niantic is setting up a monthly rotation for Legendaries as rewards, circling back to old ones as a way for players to snag them if they didn’t through raids earlier. Or they can try for a higher IV version. It seems pretty clear that next month will be Articuno, and perhaps Lugia and Ho-Oh will be after that, before the game shifts to the Legendary Beasts in the coming months.
I really love how Niantic is using Field Research to rotate back in legendary Pokémon, as I’ve said for ages that when quests arrived, they should offer paths to legendaries as an alternate path to raids, which require a reliance on other people. The current system is a good one. Raiders will get first access to new legendary Pokémon, but eventually, other players can solo quests and get access to them as well. And they’ll have four chances a month to do so with each new 7-day period of research tasks.
My guess is that we will also see some of these old legendaries rotate back around to raids in special events, or when Niantic has down time between the release of new legendaries. Gen 4 probably isn’t all that far away at this point, a few months maybe, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see older legendaries return to rotating before that happens.
What we don’t have any new information about is whether or not May will also bring a new Special Research Tasks, aka a new Mythic Pokémon to chase like Celebi, which would be replacing Mew. I would be a little surprised if Niantic started doing one new Mythic every month, because there are not all that many of them to go through, but perhaps that will switch over as well. If so, they’re not advertising it up front, so perhaps they want it to be a surprise. But come May 1st, players may have another quest on their hands, so if you’re still chasing Mew, maybe try to finish that up in the next few days. I’m not sure if you can run multiple Special Research quests at once.
May should be a fun month for Pokémon GO between new Research and assuredly other events as well. Zapdos is coming, but he may not be alone, so stay tuned.
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