As the name suggests, Gen 4 Pokémon are from the franchise’s fourth generation of games - Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum - and feature many evolutions of creatures from previous generations, as well as some new baby Pokémon and, as always, brand new Legendary creatures. After months of teases and hints, Gen 4 has finally arrived - and like Gen 3, they will arrive in waves. On this page: Update (May 18th): There’s been a big Gen 4 update with 16 new creatures, some of which require use of the new Glacial Lure, Mossy Lure and Magnetic Lure modules. June 2022 rollout (1 total) After a long break, a new Gen 4 Pokémon was added as part of Go Fest 2022 in June of that year. It’s important to note that, upon Shaymin’s initial release, it was only available to players who purchased a Go Fest 2022 ticket and that only Land Forme Shaymin is currently available in Pokémon Go. July 2020 rollout (1 total) Wash Rotom appeared as a Snapshot Photobomb as part of Go Fest 2020: October 2019 rollout (1 total) Darkrai appeared in five-star raids, despite being a Mythical Pokémon: May 2019 rollout (16 total) April 2019 rollout (3 total) The end of April saw the arrival of Azelf, Uxie, Mesprit, who buck the trend as the first Legendaries to appear in the game as wild spawns. They are exceedingly rare, but the good news is in May, they are in Legendary Raids in different regions. Meanwhile, it appeared that Shellos was also released at the same time, but then rolled back - so though some people have it, it’s probably best to not be considered an official release. February 2019 rollout (17 total) A new wave of Sinnoh Stone evolutions, one baby and several wild Gen 4 encounters arrived in early February: March 2019 Raid rollout (1 total) The removal of Palkia from raids saw the addition of Dialga to Tier 5 encounters. January 2019 Raid rollout (1 total) The removal of Kyogre and Groudon from raids saw the addition of Palkia to Tier 5 encounters. December 2018 Raid rollout (1 total) The removal of Cresselia from raids saw the addition of Heatran to Tier 5 encounters. Holiday event 2018 rollout (13 total) The 2018 Christmas Holiday event saw the introduction of some more Ice-types, as well as some other unrelated Pokémon and new additions to 7km Eggs. Late November 2018 Raid rollout (1 total) With the removal of Giratina from raids saw the addition of Cresselia Tier 5 encounters. Sinnoh 2018 rollout (11 total) Later in November saw a wave of creatures which require a Sinnoh Stone to evolve: Early November 2018 rollout (3 total) Early November has drip-fed several more creatures through various means, seemingly not tied to any particular event: Gen 4 Halloween 2018 rollout (6 total) The Halloween update has added a few more Gen 4 Pokémon, via both the Pokémon Go Halloween event itself and A Spooky Message Special Research: Gen 4’s October 2018 rollout (26 total) Gen 4’s debut includes several regional exclusives, egg-only hatches, new raids and shinies: So far, not all Pokémon from previous generations that have Gen 4 evolutions cannot be evolved just yet - see our page on the Sinnoh Stone for more on that! Wondering what’s missing? There’s a complete list (with images and Types) of the 135 Pokémon from the Hoenn region in the main games, including their evolution methods, towards the end of the article. There’s also plenty of other things to know about Gen 4 too… There are, however, a number of interesting statistics that set it apart from previous generations:
Whereas Gen 3 was comprised of mostly original creatures, Gen 4 features a large amount of evolutions from previous generations - a staggering 22 in total There are six Baby Pokémon, which all evolve into Pokémon from previous generations There’s the welcome return of two new Eevee evolutions, the first new evolutions since Gen 2 Many Pokémon have a variety of forms - from Wormadam and its many cloaks, Shellos changing appearance based on where it was caught in the main games, and Rotum, which changes appearance based on possessing electrical appliances There are nine Legendaries, and five Mythical Pokémon - both more than any previous generation to date
Here is a useful at-a-glance look at Gen 4, courtesy of MordredSinReino on reddit: The Season of Mythical Wishes continues with the Winter Holiday event, which has brought Mega Glalie to Pokémon Go. Don’t forget to partake in the new Go Battle League season. Elsewhere, be sure to use Daily Adventure Incense for the chance of encountering Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos and Galarian Moltres.
