In Pokémon GO, there is currently a lot of confusion surrounding a tweet from Niantic announcing the switch of two regional Pokémon. However, it has since been deleted.
This is the tweet in question: Last night, at 10:00 PM German time, Niantic tweeted that Volbeat and Illumise would switch their regions. So we would be getting Illumise.
But shortly afterwards, the tweet was deleted. Trainers were hotly discussing the topic, as a switch would upset many players.
Are we getting Illumise now?
This is the feedback on the tweet: The majority of the feedback is negative. Many are upset that this was only announced now. After all, there was recently an event where one could catch Illumise for the first time here in Germany.
Trainers were primarily hunting for the new regional Pokémon in their respective regions and wanted to get the shiny there. The existing regional Pokémon would still appear after the event, and there would still be time to hunt for the shiny.
However, with a possible switch, that would no longer be possible, and they would have essentially searched in vain for the wrong regional Pokémon.
Only a few players would actually be happy about this. After all, they had a whole week to catch Illumise in this country. So from a Pokédex entry point of view, the switch would not be interesting.
Are the two Pokémon switching now? In Niantic’s tweet, it was stated that the two Pokémon had already switched. Theoretically, one should be able to catch Illumise in Germany already, but that is not the case. Volbeat still appears here.
A switch has definitely not taken place, and the deletion of the tweet suggests that it was only published by mistake.
Nonetheless, it seems that Niantic at least had the plan for a switch. However, there is now a lot of criticism about it. It remains to be seen whether Niantic will actually go through with this step and ignore the opinions of trainers regarding it.
These would certainly not be the first Pokémon to switch their regions. Lunastein and Sonnfel have swapped their regions multiple times, and Sengo and Vipitis were originally found in different regions.
Many regional Pokémon have, however, only been found in their regions since the game’s release. A detailed list of all regional Pokémon can be found here. There you will also see where exactly the Pokémon appear and where you should travel to find especially many regional Pokémon.
