Celebrating the launch of the first expansion for Pokémon Sword & Shield, The Pokémon Company have added a community challenge to the game for everyone. A new Max Raid Battle featuring Zeraora can result in everyone that completes it receiving a Shiny Zeraora of their very own.
The Challenge Zeraora event is running from today until 28th June, and if more than one million trainers defeat Zeraora in the Max Raid, then everyone that managed to do so will get a Shiny Zeraora delivered to their Pokémon Home. You cannot catch the one that you battle, but will earn it through the community event, so long as you jump through a few technical hurdles outlined below.
Regular Zeraora can appear in three-star Max Raid Battles or higher, while you can encounter Shiny Zeraora in five-star Max Raid Battles. It doesn’t matter which version you battle, as both count toward the 1 million trainer count.
Want to earn a Shiny Zeraora? First you’ll need to battle one!
Earning Shiny Zeraora requires that you meet done the following, as outlined by The Pokémon Company:
- To receive Shiny Zeraora, players must move a Pokemon between Pokémon Home and Pokémon Sword or Pokémon Shield between 17th June and 6th July.
- Shiny Zeraora will be gifted via the mobile device version of Pokémon Home.
- An internet connection and the latest Wild Area News are required to challenge Zeraora.
- The Wild Area News is automatically received when the Nintendo Switch system is connected ot the internet. Players can manually receive it by selecting Get the Wild Area News under Mystery Gift in the X Menu.
Once the main Max Raid community challenge target has been surpassed, every player that takes part will also receive a piece of Armorite Ore for every hundred thousand Trainers that defeat Zeraora after the first million is reached (up to a maximum of 10 pieces). Armorite Ore can be used in the dojo on the Isle of Armor to have your Pokémon learn moves.
The Isle of Armor expansion is out today for Pokémon Sword & Shield, and set to be followed by The Crown Tundra expansion later this year. Isle of Armor expands the game to a new island region, based around a new dojo that you’ll take an apprenticeship at. Mustard is your new mentor, with Klara and Avery your new rivals in Sword and Shield respectively. In the dojo a new Cram-o-matic machine allows players to combine up to four items to create new items. The legendary new Pokémon here is Kubfu, a fighting type bear that Mustard will entrust you with, and can evolve into two types of Urshifu, with a single-strike Fighting and Dark type, and rapid strike Fighting and Water types. Oh, and it’ll have a Dynamax form with unique moves. Galarian Slowbro also makes its debut here, and there will be Gigantamax forms for Blastoise and Venusaur.
The celebration also carries over to Pokémon Go, where Galarian Farfetch’d will make an appearance and players will receive special avatar items based off the clothing you can wear on the Isle of Armor.
Watch the full Pokémon Presents here:
The announcement came alongside Pokémon Smile, a mobile augmented reality app that’s designed to make brushing teeth a more fun activity for young children, New Pokémon Snap, a revival and sequel to the 20-year-old Nintendo 64 classic, and Pokémon Cafe Mix, a cute little café managing puzzle game coming to Switch and smartphone.
They also teased another Pokémon announcement that’s coming next week. Whatever could it be?
Source: The Pokémon Company
