Pokemon Go Adds New "Gen 5" Region Exclusive Pokemon

Eight of the new Pokemon being added to Pokemon Go later today will be region exclusive. Later today, Pokemon Go will begin adding Pokemon originally seen in Pokemon Black and White. While most of the Pokemon appearing today can be caught anywhere, the game will continue its trend of making some Pokemon available in specific regions. The Elemental Monkey Pokemon Pansear, Panpour, and Pansage will each be exclusive to one of the game's three continental regions. Pansage will be exclusive to the Asia-Pacific region, Pansear will be exclusive to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and Panpour will be exclusive to North and South America.

Interestingly, this marks the first time that Pokemon Go has made a Pokemon with the ability to evolve exclusive to one region. Every other region exclusive Pokemon can't evolve further, and only one Pokemon (Mr. Mime) has a pre-evolved form. Pansear, Panpour, and Pansage can all evolve in Pokemon Go using the Unova Stone.

The Pokemon Durant and Heatmor will also be region exclusives. Durant will be exclusive to the Eastern Hemisphere, while Heatmor will be exclusive to the Western Hemisphere. These two Pokemon are longtime rivals (Heatmor is an anteater Pokemon that torches Durant to death and uses its flames to melt its steel shells) so the Pokemon were actually split up to acknowledge their in-game relationship. This is similar to Seviper and Zangoose's rivalry, which is also acknowledged by splitting them between different regions.

The eight Pokemon are among the over 40 Pokemon getting added to Pokemon Go later today. These Pokemon originally appeared in the Unova region but have since made appearances in other Pokemon games. Not only will players have dozens of new Pokemon to find and collect starting later today, some of the Pokemon will also be more powerful than the strongest Pokemon currently available in Pokemon Go.

The new Pokemon will appear beginning at 4 PM ET today.