Pokemon Sword & Shield's Galarian Legendary Birds Have a Shiny Throwback Reference

The new Galarian versions of the Legendary Bird trio have a fun callback to their original forms. Pokemon Sword and Shield's Crown Tundra expansion is available now and features new versions of Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. The three birds have new regional variants in the expansion, which change their types to Psychic-type, Fighting-type, and Dark-type respectively. While these classic birds look totally different, they actually do have a clever nod back to their original forms. The three Pokemon's Shiny forms have the color patterns of the original Kanto versions. That means the Shiny Galarian Articuno is a pale blue, Zapdos is bright yellow, and Moltres is a mix of red and orange.

While these Shiny forms were discovered via a datamine, don't expect to actually see one of these new Shiny Pokemon in the wild. All three Galarian Legendary Birds are Shiny Locked, which means you can't actually find them in their Shiny forms in the game. On the plus side, you will be able to find the Shiny forms of several other Pokemon, including all of the Legendary Golems and the Legendary Swords of Justice, through Dynamax Adventures or through normal encounters.

Since we can't get Shiny versions of the Galarian Birds in Pokemon Sword and Shield, expect to see the Pokemon Company to do some sort of distribution eventually. It might not happen soon, but these Shiny Legendary Galarian Birds are too cool to keep away from trainers for long!

Pokemon Sword and Shield's Crown Tundra DLC is available now.