Pokemon GO offers bizarre Rayquaza Mega Evolution, leaving the community in splits

Pokemon GO has been out for over six years now, but it still has its fair share of bugs and glitches. While most bugs can make the game harder and much more infuriating for the average player, the occasional visual glitch can make for some pretty funny moments. This very thing happened to one player, who recently shared their experience on the title's subreddit.

The odd glitch that user Chobka encountered appeared to offer them the trade of a lifetime: their Rayquaza for the world's most powerful Shiny Ekans. Despite the questionable nature of such a sacrifice, the trainer took it as a good joke, sharing their experience with the rest of the game's online community on the message board.

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Hilarious Pokemon GO glitch offers Redditor the most powerful Ekans of all time

How my speech sounds in my head vs my actual speech byu/Chobka inpokemongo

The Pokemon GO visual glitch encountered by Chobka somehow replaced the image for Mega Rayquaza with a picture of Shiny Ekans. There could be different reasons why the bug occurred, but none justify its existence. With the debut of Mega Rayquaza being a big deal for the game, it is weird that Niantic would not take respective care when implementing it.

One potential explanation for this error is that, for some reason, the official icon for Mega Rayquaza could not be found in the files at the time. As such, the failsafe for such an occasion may have replaced Mega Rayquaza with the placeholder icon used during its development, which may very well be the same icon for Shiny Ekans.

Comment byu/Chobka from discussion inpokemongo

If the player took the deal and Mega Evolved their Rayquaza, it is very unlikely that it would have resulted in them receiving a 6,000 combat power Shiny Ekans. If it did, it would likely be a placeholder model for Mega Rayquaza, which means it would still possess the stats and the moveset it had beforehand. It would also likely return to a Rayquaza after the eight-hour Mega limit is up.

Nevertheless, it is rare to see placeholder graphics used in the live game. This is because when the feature these placeholders were assigned to is officially implemented, they are removed from the game's files. If Shiny Ekans was not the placeholder icon used for Mega Rayquaza during development for its debut in Pokemon GO, this glitch is even more unusual.

Comment byu/Chobka from discussion inpokemongo

While many players would hope that Niantic would fix the glitch in the next update, this is highly unlikely. These types of visual bugs and others that are much more severe have been in Pokemon GO since its initial launch, with many from this era still being commonplace.

Overall, it is unclear what causes the abundance of visual bugs in Pokemon GO, but it is unlikely they will ever all be absent from the title. Thankfully, this glitch appeared to be just a harmless mix-up of icons rather than a serious game-breaking issue.