Data miners find details about Mega Evolution in Pokémon Go’s latest update

Niantic already announced that Mega Evolution was going to be added to Pokémon Go earlier this year. But thanks to some data miners, fans now know that this will also include Mega Raids, items, and limits for the evolution method. 

PokeMiners, a larger group of data miners within the Pokémon community, posted a huge list of highlights and findings on Reddit that shows that most (if not all) of the necessary data for Mega Evolutions has already been added to the game as of version 0.185. 

Starting with the most pressing addition, according to the data, Mega Pokémon will be available and there will also be raids specifically for capturing Mega Evolved Pokémon. These raids will also give out Mega Candy, which looks like it might be used to Mega Evolve capable Pokémon for certain periods of time. 

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That lines up with a line of data called “ShowMegaSpendEvolveCosts,” which points to there being a cost to Mega Evolve a Pokémon during battle, though there aren’t any details on that yet. There’s also something called Mega Time, which might mean a time limit will be placed on Mega Evolutions during battles and it’ll be displayed for you to see. 

There will be new animations when you use Mega Evolution, and according to the data, it’ll involve rapidly spinning the evolving Pokémon and the standard mega symbol glowing with a rainbow gradient. Mega Raids will also have their own lobby and battle music to differentiate them from normal raids. 

Two other pieces of information called Mega Boosts and Mega Energy also show that there might be a new boost applied to the powered-up species, along with what might be an energy meter that decays over time. We won’t know more about these changes until Niantic releases more information, however. 

The reported details about Mega Evolution include:

• Mega Raids are a thing and will give Mega Candy.
• Mega Raids will have their own music.
• There will be some quest element to Mega evolving your Pokémon.
• Megas will be temporary and will revert to their muggle state after a set amount of time.
  • No time limit is given yet.
• Megas will have animations for evolving and de-evolving.
• Megas will have specific displays for things like name, CP, Pokédex, etc.
• Megas will have some form of boost and energy mechanic.

Another interesting line of code mentions custom forms, with the entry reading “IsFormCustomToPgo.” This might mean any special event Pokémon that can’t be transferred to Pokémon Home will be labeled with a new badge or something. 

The remainder of the update has various other additions that are going to add a lot to other parts of the game. Here’s the list from PokeMiners.

• Willow has some friends (new characters)
• New event badges
• Search / Filter menu
• New map library (basically a map app, with tons of standard map features)
• Several additions to AR Networking and a shared AR experience
  • This and the map might be part of the Niantic Real World Platform
• Sticker Inventory
• Friend and Gift updates to scrolling (as announced)
• Reporting ad feedback
• Clearing your app settings and local files (as announced and previously data mined)

It seems Niantic is about ready to flip the switch on Megas, but there’s no set date or any information pointing to when it might go live. You can view the official 0.185 Release Notes on the Pokémon Go blog, though they only focus on some updates and bug fixes.