No, you can’t evolve Kubfu yet in Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go’s latest season, Might and Mastery, arrived at the start of March, and with it, trainers across the globe got access to the adorable Fighting-type Pokémon Kubfu, who will be the main star for the next few months.

For those unfamiliar with the Sword and Shield DLC Pokémon, Kubfu can evolve into one of two forms of Urshifu, which has taken off the loading screen for the game this season and has been heavily advertised as the flagship Pokémon for the next few months—not that you’d know if you caught Kubfu and were wondering how to evolve it.

Looking at Kubfu’s main information, you might notice that there isn’t a choice to evolve it—yet—and for good reason. This has been the norm with every new evolvable Legendary Pokémon for quite some time now in Pokémon Go to tie the evolution to the season’s progression.

Niantic has delayed the arrival of many evolutions for certain Pokémon during seasons, including Cosmog. The developer also has a habit of forgetting evolutions entirely, such as White-Striped Basculin, which was added to the game in early 2024, but we haven’t seen Basculegion since. For the avid Pokémon Go player, a few missing evolutions aren’t that surprising, so don’t panic that you can’t evolve Kubfu right this second.

Niantic usually does this to pad out the seasonal content and give you a story reason as to why it took so long for Kubfu to evolve. While this is sweet in theory, it usually leads to a lackluster evolution as most trainers just wait for the day for Niantic to flip the switch and finally evolve the Pokémon they’ve been waiting on for some time.

When Kubfu can evolve, you’ll likely need to pick between two different evolution methods to get one of two forms of Urshifu: Single Strike Style or Rapid Strike Style. Single Strike is Dark and Fighting type, while Rapid Strike is Water and Fighting type. While both have distinct differences, only one is a better choice than the other—at least regarding the main series games.

While Kubfu will eventually be able to evolve, we imagine it’ll be several months before you have the chance, maybe even as far along as May to tie in with the Go Fest in late May or early June. The event is set to include Volcanion, Crowned Sword Zacian, Crowned Shield Zamazenta, and likely an appearance from Eternatus, if we had to take a guess.