‘Pokemon Go’ to Add New Costumed Pikachu

Pokemon Go appears to be gearing up to add some new costumed Pikachu to the game.

Pokemon Go has long used costumed Pikachu as an easy way to add some holiday fun to their game. Starting with a “Santa Hat” Pikachu back in 2016, Pokemon Go has periodically released new Pikachu into the wild to celebrate various seasonal events or milestones.

While we were anticipating the return of “Santa Hat” Pikachu in the coming days, it appears that Pokemon Go has another surprise in mind. Last night, the popular Pokemon Go dataminer Chrales leaked two upcoming costumed Raichu, one of which was wearing a winter wool cap (AKA a toque.)

Interestingly, only Raichu currently has new costumes, which indicates that the new costumes aren’t quite ready to go yet. However, the Winter Hat Raichu will likely appear sometime during the winter, possibly as part of a New Year’s event or some other special event.

The Raichu with flowers around its ear is a bit more intriguing, in part because Chrales also discovered that Pokemon Go had recently added the 3D assets for the Mythical Pokemon Shaymin to the game’s network traffic. Shaymin also wears pink flowers in a similar spot in its leafy quills, raising speculation that the two could somehow be related.

Pokemon Go is gearing up for the release of a new PvP battle system, which will likely drop sometime this week. The new system allows players to battle their friends in 3v3 Pokemon battles. Players not only gain items and candies by battling, they can also unlock a secondary charge move, giving players even more options in battles. The game also seems to be hinting that more “Gen 4” Pokemon will be released soon, giving players even more reason to stay busy as the game heads into 2019.