Take this with a pinch of PokeSalt, but it appears that the legendary Pokemon Articuno has surfaced in Niantic’s Pokemon GO.
Articuno isn’t actually meant to be in the game for the time being, along with other legendary ‘mon Mew, Mewtwo, Zapdos, Moltres, and Ditto (for some reason).
However, a number of Reddit users have reported seeing Articuno chilling out on gyms in Ohia, and have even provided screenshots and video evidence.
So the two big questions now are: what’s going on and where the fuck is my legendary bird?
Articuno’s alleged owner, Kaitlyn Covey, revealed on her local Pokemon GO Facebook group that she received the frozen bird as part of an apology from Niantic after complaining about a game related issue.
Okay… I’m not saying she’s lying, but if everyone who complained to Niantic about Pokemon GO got a legendary Pokemon, we’d be up to our necks in the fuckers.
Also, the general expectation has been that Niantic is saving legendary releases for special public events at key locations – presumably where they can make maximum cash and get heaps of exposure.
The most likely explanation is some kind of hack or exploit that rewrites a normal Pokemon’s data so that it appears as Articuno. Obviously if such an exploit caught on, Niantic would have even more of a mess to clean up than they already do.
Fake reports of legendary Pokemon are as old as the original Gameboy games, as I’m sure you probably remember, so just take a beat before you email Ninatic demanding a Moltres.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.