Is Articuno coming to Pokemon Unite?

Articuno may be joining Zapdos in Pokemon Unite for the Christmas season. Both Articuno and Zapdos are two-thirds of the legendary bird trio of the Kanto region. They’ve made several appearances in other games, including Pokemon Gold, Silver, Crystal, and Pokemon Snap.

Pokemon Unite players are certainly familiar with Zapdos, an end game objective that can lose them the match if they fail to secure it. However, Articuno may soon be a new objective to fight for.

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Legendary Pokemon potentially to be new objective in Shivre City

To celebrate Pokemon’s 25th anniversary, the franchise is holding a Screenshot Capture Contest. For this event, fans can take screenshots of Pokemon that apply to a specific theme and submit them for a potential prize.

The current theme is Winter Wonderland, as was announced on Nintendo of Europe’s Twitter. In the tweet where they made this announcement, however, they dropped an image showing Articuno in the middle of Shivre City, a quick game map in Pokemon Unite.

Currently, Avalugg spawns in the middle of Shivre City. The team which defeats Avalugg receives 20 points and an icy shield. In addition, their goal gets frozen so opponents can’t score, and the opponents’ goal gets broken.

It’s unclear if Articuno will offer the same buffs, but it looks like it will be the new objective for this winter-themed quick game map.

Articuno rests in the Seafoam Islands in Kanto (Image via The Pokemon Company)

In its short existence, Pokemon Unite has a history of decorating its quick game maps for holidays. For Halloween, Mer Stadium was transformed with spooky pumpkins around the area.

There was also a new battle item for the Halloween version of Mer Stadium. Projectiles could be thrown at opponents to turn them into pumpkins, after which they would drop their Aeos coins.

An update to Pokemon Unite for the holiday season makes sense, seeing as nothing much changed when Season 2 began recently. Crustle and Venusaur had new Holowear revealed for the battle pass, but most other aspects stayed the same.

There are still many changes fans would like to see in the game. Matchmaking has been an issue many have raised since the game’s release. Players have also been hoping for a nerf to the ever powerful Greedent.