Over the course of its 4 years on mobile devices, Pokemon GO has received an incredible amount of updates, from regular seasonal events, to the addition the series' newest Pokemon, the ability to trade, and most recently, new additions to Mega Evolution. While the first few generations of monsters were fairly straightforward, later generations shook things up by adding Pokemon with different forms based on gender, the weather, held items, and other conditions.

While in the mainline games, players can use different items on certain Pokemon to change their forms, Pokemon GO previously circumvented this by simply releasing the creatures in their different forms at separate times. For example, the game first gave players the chance to raid battle and capture Giratina in its Altered Forme in 2018, and later introduced the Origin Forme version to raid battles in 2019. But now, it seems that Pokemon GO may change that method.

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After the game received its most recent update, a group of Pokemon GO dataminers known as PokeMiners has discovered a plethora of new features coming to the game. Among other features like giving players the ability to Favorite certain friends, new data suggests that the game may also allow players to change their Pokemon's forms at will in a future update.

The many mentions of form changing in the game's code allude to some sort of cost for doing so. While nothing is confirmed as of yet, it is likely that players will have to use Stardust to change the form of certain Pokemon. This may also work in combination with items used for changing forms, like DNA Splicers for Kyurem-Black and Kyurem-White, and meteorites to change Deoxys between its Normal, Attack, Defense, and Speed forms. It is likely that just as in the mainline Pokemon games, Pokemon GO won't allow players to change the forms of certain ones like Vivillon or Shellos, which are based on the location they were caught in respectively.

Although the 5th generation Legendary Forces of Nature Thundurus, Landorus, and Tornadus made their way to raid battles last year, they only appeared in their humanoid Incarnate Formes. Since the 3 Legendary Pokemon haven't yet appeared in Pokemon GO in their animal-like Incarnate formes, the game could allow players to use the Reveal Glass, an item introduced in Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, to change their forms.

Even though Pokemon GO is a game that revolves around exploring the real-world, the game has managed to continue to thrive during COVID-19 with gameplay changes that allow players to enjoy the game indoors. For now, it will be interesting to see if form changing eventually makes its way over to Pokemon GO sometime in the future.

Pokemon GO is available on Android and iOS.

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