Pokemon Go Update Teases Mysterious Purified Pokemon

Pokemon Go could be bringing back a mechanic from Pokemon Colosseum. Earlier today, Niantic started its rollout of a new update for Pokemon Go. While the update contained the usual set of tantalizing clues about the future, the biggest change was the mention of "Purified Pokemon" - namely that the game would now keep track of how many Pokemon a player had purified. The line of code was first identified by the dataminer Chrales and then confirmed by several other websites.

Purifying a Pokemon isn't part of any main series Pokemon game, but it was a part of the Gamecube spinoff games Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness. In those games, players could battle and capture Shadow Pokemon, Pokemon which forcibly had their emotions removed. Shadow Pokemon could not level up and could only attack trainers. In order to restore them to their natural forms, players would gradually purify them by filling their Heart Gauges with different activities. When a Pokemon was fully purified, they would gain all their XP en masse, learn new moves, and even occasionally learn a special move.

While we don't know what purification could be used for in Pokemon Go, the timing seems curious given that the game recently teased a Team Rocket event at Pokemon Go Fest. If Team Rocket is about to have some sort of role in Pokemon Go, then Shadow Pokemon might be an interesting way to keep the event from centering around raids.

Of course, like all information pulled from datamines, we should take this purification mechanic with a grain of salt. After all, Pokemon Go has teased plenty of new mechanics and items and then never implemented them in the game.

What do you think about the potential of Shadow Pokemon in Pokemon Go? Let us know in the comments!