Assets for a Unova Stone discovered in recent Pokémon GO update

Pokémon GO is about to get another evolution stone and reactions among fans are mixed.

As the fifth generation of Pokémon is about to hit Pokémon GO on Sept. 16, data miners found assets for an Unova Stone in the recent update’s code.

An asset for the Unova Stone was found in the 0.153.0 update. It will likely be used similarly as the Sinnoh Stone. (Credit: @Chrales)

(Notice that the stone is Black and White) pic.twitter.com/wA5VPMw5Dq

— Leek Duck (NYC) (@LeekDuck) August 22, 2019

This stone is doubling down on what Niantic and The Pokémon Company did with Sinnoh evolutions, where any special evolution that is based on an item or specific location from the generation four games would require a Sinnoh Stone to evolve.

This new Unova Stone will work similarly, giving players a way to evolve Lampent and Minccino. But what about Pokémon like Karrablast and Shelmet that need to be traded with each other to evolve? Will you need to use this stone to get other trade evolutions like Gigalith and Conkeldurr?

There are also fans complaining about the inclusion of another evolution item to collect, calling this new stone unnecessary. Whether it is because things like the Sinnoh Stone are sometimes hard to come by or the 100s of King’s Rocks and Dragon Scales gathering dust in Trainer’s bags, many are calling for a return to the candy only evolutions.

This seems unnecessary https://t.co/UjFelbbv4J

— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) August 22, 2019

All of this while citing that the first three generations didn’t have special items, only candy required for the majority of the evolutions, where now dozens of Pokémon require an item and candy.

Regardless, this item will be available when Unova Pokémon start popping up in Pokémon GO come mid-September. As more data is collected a full list of Pokémon that require the item to evolve will likely be made available before the content update.