'Pokemon Go' Makes Sinnoh Stone Harder to Find

Pokemon Go's newest evolutionary item is now a lot more elusive.

Earlier this month, Pokemon Go added the Sinnoh Stone to the game to let players evolve certain Pokemon species into new forms first seen in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The Sinnoh Stone granted access to powerful Pokemon like Rhyperior, Electivire, or Roserade, but could only be obtained as a Research Breakthrough reward. Players earn Research Breakthroughs by completing Field Research tasks on seven separate days.

While the Sinnoh Stone was initially a guaranteed Research Breakthrough reward, Pokemon Go seems to have made it a "random" prize earlier this week. Thousands of players have reported not getting the Sinnoh Stone in their weekly Research Breakthrough rewards, which means it's now significantly harder to obtain the item and evolve some new Pokemon.

The exact odds aren't known, but the Sinnoh Stone appears to be one of five rewards that players can now get from Research Breakthroughs. The other four rewards include 3 Rare Candies, 20 Poke Balls, 5 Pinap Berries, or 5 Ultra Balls. Players will also get Stardust and an encounter with a specific Pokemon (Shedinja in November.)

Pokemon Go players aren't too thrilled about the change, especially as it was made without any warning. Plus, there's currently no other way to obtain a Sinnoh Stone, so players could be waiting months to stockpile enough Sinnoh Candies to evolve all their Pokemon. Various Pokemon Go representives have teased that additional ways to obtain a Sinnoh Stone could be added in the future, but they didn't give a timeline or any other substantive hits.

Right now, there's 11 Pokemon species that require a Sinnoh Stone to evolve, including Electivire, Roserade, Weavile, Rhyperior, Honchkrow, Togekiss, Magmortar, Mismagius, Porygon Z, Gliscor, and Dusknoir.

We'll have to see if this is just a temporary bug or if this is the new normal for Pokemon Go. In the meantime, be prepared to go without Sinnoh Stones for weeks or even months if you're unlucky.