For those who might not have known, there has been a growing stack of evidence that suggests a Pokemon Go Gen 3 release was set to launch around Halloween.
We first received an update from the Pokemon Company, talking about how Pokemon Halloween 2017 could include “new” Pocket Monsters to catch.
Then there was the recent interview with Niantic CEO, John Hanke, who confirmed that the Pokemon Go Gen 3 launch was the company’s next big project.
And now more news has been revealed via the latest Pokemon Go update.
Dataminers have already found plenty of evidence that Niantic were planning a Gen 3 launch.
And now it seems it’s all but confirmed that the upcoming Halloween event will provide the launchpad.
Earlier updates made to Pokemon Go secretly included Gen 3 data that would be needed for the launch.
The only thing missing was the audio files, which have now been confirmed as part of the latest patch for the game.
But something more important has also been found, the wallpaper for the upcoming Pokemon Go Halloween event includes Gen 3 Pocket Monsters.
It should be noted that the new Pokemon Go Halloween event looks set to only include Ghost and Dark-type Pocket Monsters, rather than all.
Gen 3 Ghost Types include Shuppet, Banette, Mega Banette, Duskull and Dusclops, which is a nice selection for a limited time event.
Here’s more from the team at the Pokemon Go Hub on the subject, including a new badge, as well as other bug fixes.
“It’s happening – we now have almost all of the required Generation III files in the APK! We’ve done a quick data mine and our suspicions were confirmed: Gen III Pokémon audio clips are now in the APK, but more importantly… Gen III is coming this Halloween!
“As a bonus, a new Badge entry was added in reference to the Gen 3 Pokédex entries, a brand new Halloween 2017 loading screen and support for in-game night time Halloween music were added.
“You can see screenshots of the code and the wallpaper below. And yes, Gen III is coming for Halloween, as featured in the new loading screen.
“We don’t want to overhype this release, but there is only one thing that’s missing before Gen III can be fully released: new moves/abilities. All of the other static assets are in there, which leaves us at a tipping point.
“As far as other changes go, there are huge chunks of code changed left and right, almost exclusively as bug fixes but also as new debugging and tracing tools. It seems that Pokémon GO is maturing as a platform more and more.”
Last year’s Pokemon Go Halloween spookfest kicked off on October 26th and ended on November 1.
It seems Niantic could follow the same dates for in 2017, although no announcement has been made so far.