New Pokemon Snap: Are There Shiny Pokemon in the Game?

A datamine of New Pokemon Snap confirms what many fans suspected when it comes to Shiny Pokemon. One of the more persistent questions surrounding New Pokemon Snap is whether the game will have Shiny Pokemon. These rare variant Pokemon have a natural appearance rate of about 1 in 4,000 and would provide players with a very big optional quest to fill their time once they've completed the game's main storyline. While YouTubers and other content creators scoured through hours of footage hoping to find even a hint as to whether Shiny Pokemon could make an appearance, a new datamine seemingly confirms that no Shiny Pokemon will appear in the game.

The dataminer SciresM provided a full roster of Pokemon in New Pokemon Snap on Twitter on Thursday. The image assets were pulled from the game's Photodex and included all of the different forms and variants that appear in the game. While New Pokemon Snap has room for various variant forms and patterns, the game does not include any space for Shiny Pokemon, which seemingly confirms that no Shiny Pokemon will appear in the game.

While the news that there are no Shiny Pokemon in the game is a bit disappointing to hear, it's hardly a surprise. After all, New Pokemon Snap is built around finding clues in otherwise static environments. Unless New Pokemon Snap specifically hid a Shiny Pokemon in one of the courses, the game's not really set up to randomly swap out a Pokemon with a Shiny variant, especially as there's no guarantee that you'd even encounter a random Shiny Pokemon based on which courses you choose or which Pokemon events you chose to trigger.

Luckily, there are over 200 different Pokemon species present in New Pokemon Snap, many of which are cleverly hidden in the game. You'll have plenty to do in New Pokemon Snap without having to worry about finding random variant Pokemon with only a slim chance of appearing.

New Pokemon Snap is available now on the Nintendo Switch.