Niantic accidentally added unreleased Kyurem Black and Kyurem White to Pokémon Go as rewards

While many Pokémon fans are busy with the newly released Pokémon Scarlet and Violet The Indigo Disk DLC, Niantic made a slip and accidentally released both forms of Kyurem in Pokémon Go through the Go Battle League.

In a moment of confusion, some players grinding the current GBL season went to claim their reward encounters after completing a set of battles. However, instead of encountering one of the Pokémon listed in the reward section, a few lucky trainers found themselves face-to-face with the unreleased Kyurem Black or Kyurem White—neither of which has been officially announced for Pokémon Go yet.

Images of these seemingly shadow-dropped Legendary Pokémon quickly started making waves on social media as more players went to verify they were appearing as GBL rewards for Rank 20 or higher trainers. It was shortlived, however, as Niantic noticed it and took action to ensure the “unintended” issue was fixed. According to the Niantic Support Twitter page, it sounds like the reason for this error is still unknown internally.

“Trainers, we were experiencing issues with Black Kyurem and White Kyurem being rewarded in GBL. These two Pokémon were unintended, and the issue is now fixed, so these two Pokémon are currently no longer available,” Niantic Support said. “We’re looking into the root cause and next steps, and will update here once we have more information to share. We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience.”

This is not the first time an issue like this has happened. Whether it be a feature having unintended problems or Pokémon being shown off in the wrong way, the Pokémon Go community is used to it and is now just confused about how something as big as two unreleased Legendary Pokémon could be accidentally pushed live like this. 

Kyurem is set to return to five-star raids on Dec. 16 so it is entirely possible Kyurem Black and Kyurem White are going to be announced very soon as part of the December Ice-type festivities. No official confirmation or even a tease for the Unovan fusions have surfaced just yet, but now it feels like a matter of time since Niantic the secret may have been ruined.