Pokemon Go: First Official Mention of Generation 3 Added

Dusclops, Shuppet, Banette, Duskull, and Sableye are on the way.

By Andrew Goldfarb

UPDATE: Niantic has added a new Hoenn Pokedex badge to Pokemon Go, providing even more evidence of an imminent release of generation three.

A datamine of a new update has revealed that Pokemon from generation three are coming soon to Pokemon Go.

According to fan community The Silph Road, Pokemon Go update 0.79.2 (which was rolled out today by developer Niantic) includes a new loading screen featuring generation three Pokemon Dusclops, Shuppet, Banette, Duskull, and Sableye.

The update also adds sound files for the generation three Pokedex up to #386, as well as a badge to reward players for catching Pokemon from generation three, new music, various bug fixes, and more. The Silph Road founder dronpes posted the full list of changes on Reddit.

Pokemon Go's new Halloween loading screen, datamined by The Silph Road

The third generation of Pokemon was introduced along with the Hoenn region in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, which originally came to Game Boy Advance in Japan in 2002 and the West in 2003.

For now, today's information is only from a datamine and hasn’t been officially confirmed by Niantic. However, a recent Halloween-themed Pokemon Company blog post hinted at “catching new Pokemon to fill out our Pokedex” in reference to Pokemon Go, so evidence is mounting that a Halloween event including new Pokemon is indeed coming soon.

Last year, Niantic held a Pokemon Go Halloween event that offered double candy and increased spawns for Ghost-type Pokemon. The first hint at generation two Pokemon in Pokemon Go came from a datamined update in 2016 more than a month ahead of the first generation two Pokemon appearing in the game.

For generation two, seven baby Pokemon (and one evolution) were added to the game in December 2016, followed by the nearly complete release of generation two in early 2017. For now, it’s unclear if generation three will follow a similar staggered release or if they'll be added to Pokemon Go all at once.

Pokemon Go most recently added Mewtwo and the three Johto legendary beasts, but still has not released the entirety of generation one or two. Pokemon currently still missing from the game include Mew, Smeargle, Delibird, Ho-Oh, and Celebi.

Andrew is IGN's executive editor of news and currently has 243 Pokemon caught / 244 seen in his Pokedex. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.

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