Posted in: Games, Mobile Games, Niantic, Pokémon GO | Tagged: halloween, Niantic, pokemon, pokemon go, Zorua

How Could Pokémon GO Have Messed Up The Zorua Drop This Bad?

Zorua came out in Pokémon GO yesterday. Kind of. Let's take a look at Niantic's most insane mistake of 2022 which is saying quite a lot.

Here's what happened in Pokémon GO this past Tuesday:

• Niantic announced earlier that there would be a special bonus during Tuesday's Shuppet Spotlight Hour for Trainers who fed their Buddies and walked with them during the hour-long event.
• Niantic then released a video showing a ton of Noibats, leading many, including me, to think that we were in for a way to make more Noibat spawn. I wrote:
  • "There may indeed be another green Shiny Pokémon that people are interested in tonight, though. The video shows a trainer using a Buddy Pokémon and then getting flooded with Noibat encounters. If this truly does happen tonight, these Spotlight Hour encounters will be the only way to actually encounter Noibat during the Halloween Event 2022. However, we cannot currently confirm that this is possible."
• It turns out that this wasn't the bonus but rather more poor, confusing marketing from Niantic, because early timezones revealed that Pokémon would spawn looking like the Trainer's Buddy Pokémon… and, when caught, they'd be revealed as the mysterious, as-of-yet unreleased Zorua.
• A great gift snatched away! Niantic wrote on Twitter during the day:
  • "Trainers, we are aware of a bug where Zorua, a Pokémon with a planned surprise encounter during October 25th's Shuppet Spotlight Hour, retains stats such as the height, CP, and attacks of the Pokémon it originally took on the form of. The Zorua surprise that occurred in time zones, including and prior to GMT+13 will not occur in time zones after we fix this. Shuppet Spotlight Hour will still occur. Zorua already caught by Trainers will not be able to be Traded, sent to Pokémon HOME, or allowed in GO Battle League until this issue is resolved. Please stay tuned for further details. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused."

All I'm left with is confusion. How could this have happened? How, so many years into the game, after so many early timezone mistakes, could such a major release be botched like this?

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