Game Freak is getting in on some early April Fools’ Day action with a new “special” Max Raid Battle event in Pokémon Sword and Shield that has replaced all Pokémon with Magikarp.
That’s right. For the entirety of April 1, players will only be able to encounter Magikarp in raids, regardless of the rarity. And as an added prank, all of the Magikarp are non-catchable.
Players initially called out Joe Merrick, the webmaster for one of the biggest Pokémon websites, Serebii for playing his own April Fools’ joke. But the Magikarp event has actually been pushed live in Sword and Shield.
The normal raid rewards and Magikarp levels still scale based on the one to five-star system, but you won’t get any variety outside of that.
The normal Max Raid rotation for April should kick on April 2, with new Pokémon available for players to capture throughout the month. More non-joke special events will also be announced at a later date.
