Long-time fans of Pokemon will be pleased to hear that Pokemon Go is instilling a new piece of nostalgia into the hit mobile game. Now, in the new “Looming in the Shadows” event, players can follow a series of missions in order to meet the classic Team Rocket boss, Giovanni.
Throughout the event, players and characters team up to track take down Team Go Rocket. Leading up to this, after defeating Rocket grunts at Pokestops, players have been collecting “Mysterious Components.” Professor Willow, known to early Pokemon Go players as “the hot professor,” determined these as devices capable of hijacking the Pokestops. Meanwhile, Willow “kept a log” of the situation on the Pokemon Go site.
Over time through these logs, Pokemon Go unveiled the different Team Go Rocket leaders: Cliff, Sierra, and Arlo. Each were linked with a different team’s “investigations,” and all three are intimidating, powerful figures. However, regardless of these leaders’ power, it’s clear that there are greater forces in play.
Players eager to take everyone on are going to need to persist for a little while — five days, at least. The good news? The first quest of the story line can be done easily in a day by most active players, requiring a few Pokestop spins and a few Grunts.
But the next part requires quite a bit more. Mission two requires five days of Pokemon stop spinning, 15 purified Pokemon, and 5 raids. The purified Pokemon require you to actually find those Pokemon, if you haven’t hoarded them, and Team Go Rocket stops are fairly limited. And five raids is doable in a day, but it might take a toll on your party — and your feet.
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And those are only two of the six missions along the way. But frankly, knowing the playerbase, Pokemon Go’s dedicated player base will absolutely knock them out ASAP!
[MINOR POKEMON GO STORY SPOILERS FOR THIS PARAGRAPH] But it doesn’t look unpromising to those who are putting in the effort. Data miners have pulled out the logs for these missions, and it looks like you’re sent to piece together trackers for Rocket hideaways. After determining there are bigger forces at play, Willow sends you to find down the big man himself. [/SPOILERS]
There’s always been a little bit of lore in Pokemon Go. When the game came out, players squabbled over the best team — and best leader — based on backstory and faction information. Its primary developer, Niantic, also had quite an extensive alternate reality game to accompany their sci-fi-fantasy hybrid augmented reality game Ingress (both ARGs typed out to differentiate). Ingress even recently released an anime series that debuted on Netflix this year.
Now, this story raises the stakes and to get players going outside — especially as autumn passes by and winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere. Even as it cools down, there’ll obviously be Pokemon Go players spinning stops and hijacking gyms. But this is likely one more push to let the more casual players know — no, you won’t get frostbite. Yet. (And maybe they’ll meet players who have learned how to play in the worst conditions!)
