NEWS | GO

Three new characters and a new event have been announced for Pokémon GO. Plus, a new Shiny Pokémon is now live in the game. Here's a rundown:

Team GO Rocket... Admins?

The mystery about Team Rocket's presence in the world of Pokémon GO continues. After not hearing about Team GO Rocket for a while, Niantic posted a tease on Twitter involving corrupted files on Professor Willow's computer. Many players initially theorized that this tease may be in relation to Rotom, but partially-decrypted images confirmed that the tease was instead related to Team GO Rocket.

Those images were fully decrypted yesterday, showing three new Team GO Rocket members named Cliff, Arlo, and Sierra. Many theorize they may be Team GO Rocket's admins and/or counterparts to the three Team Leaders: Spark, Candela, and Blanche.

​These three characters can also be seen in the latest update's new loading screen, which also shows Team Rocket's leader, Giovanni, and many Shadow Pokémon in a building resembling the anime's depiction of the Viridian City Gym, the location that Giovanni used as a front for his villainous operations in the mainline games.

Stardust Blast

In less-villainous news, the Stardust Blast event is set to recur starting today at 1:00 p.m. PDT. This event doubles the Stardust rewards for hatching, catching, participating in Raids, and defeating Team GO Rocket Grunts. The event will end on October 10 at 1:00 p.m. PDT.

Shiny Oddish on the Safari

The Pokémon GO Safari Zone event in New Taipei City has begun. Attendees of the event are experiencing special spawns, such as Unown and Heracross. Meanwhile, all around the world, Shiny Oddish has been released as a tie-in to the event.

Thanks for reading, Trainers!

SOURCE: Niantic