'Pokémon GO' Teasing 'Skilled Swimmer' Gen 4 Pokémon's Imminent Release


The arrival of Gen 4 is imminent, at least according to a new teaser that Niantic posted late yesterday. All of Pokémon GO’s social media accounts posted the same image of icy water without showing the actual Pokémon, but hinting at what it is. Here’s what they said:

“We’re excited to hear reports of a Water-type Pokémon originally discovered in the Sinnoh region that can dive for over 10 minutes to hunt. Its speed and quick movement definitely lead us to believe that it's a skilled swimmer. Which Pokémon could this be?”

The answer is not a great mystery. It’s Piplup, one of the three Gen 4 Sinnoh starters. Here’s part of Piplup’s bio:

“Piplup has a strong sense of self-pride. Because of its pride, it has a hard time accepting food from humans and bonding with its caretakers. It will even puff out its chest after it falls down, which it often does due to its poor walking abilities. However, it is a skilled swimmer that can dive for over ten minutes in order to hunt. It has also been shown to fly short distances in the anime. It lives along the seashore in colder climates.”

Yeah, so, riddle solved.


This teaser actually made think that Piplup was live and find-able in the game, but that does not yet appear to be the case, as for Gen 4 to get here, an update needs to be pushed live to the game. That does not usually happen over the weekend, and so the earliest we could see Gen 4 Pokémon in GO is probably Monday. As such, and given that this is a starter, I am expecting teases of the other two starters, Turtwig and Chimchar, possibly today and tomorrow.

It would be somewhat unusual for Gen 4 to arrive all at once, as we have almost never seen that happen with any big GO release. Gen 3 especially was divided up into multiple batches of releases, and generations almost always launch with just a handful of new Pokémon at first (babies, ghosts, etc) followed by larger chunks later.

So it’s possible that Niantic may release the three starters into the wild without all of Gen 4 coming with them. Gen 4 is a “smaller” generation, adding only just over a hundred to the game similar to Gen 2. It includes a lot of new evolutions of existing Pokémon as well, which is why many players thought Niantic would perhaps introduce Gen 4 with an “evolution event,” though that never came to pass.

It does seem that Gen 4 could launch as soon as Monday in some capacity. I am a little surprised that Niantic waited this long, as August would have been a good time to do it, as it was still warm for two months after that, but here in mid-October, it’s starting to get a bit chilly in many places.

We’ll have more info soon. Stay tuned.

