Timetable of Future Generation Releases (Supposition and Speculation)

I was talking about this with another member, and thought it would be cool to open this up for everyone else in a proper topic.

By my estimates, which are usually a month or two off, I have the following release dates for what I call primary Generation releases, when the primary wave of 20 or more Pokemon of that generation are released.

Gen 5: August 2019
Gen 6: June 2020
Gen 7: April 2021

There’s a 10-month gap (give or take a couple weeks) between many of these releases (the only exception being the one between Gen 1 and Gen 2 (July 2016 - Feb 2017, 8 months), but Gen 3 and Gen 4 were each 10 months apart from their respective previous generation, so I’m going by that. It’s usually based on that there are 9 Legendaries (one each month) and a couple of returning Legendaries from previous generations to fill in the gap.

As far as their releases, I do believe that the tiered released system will continue to be used, but that in Gen 5 we will see larger waves as Gen 5 boasts 151 new Pokemon, 9 of them Legendaries, and 3 Mythicals, which means that 139 Pokemon would be selected for the tiered releases. That’s the largest available since Gen 3. Very few of these Pokemon require evolutionary items or stones, only 10, and two of them are using items we already have (Sun Stone). This could be the easiest release of all, but likely have a large amount of regionals since there are many non-evolving Pokemon (13 in total, 4 of them paired). Gen 5 is likely going to be the best release due to the relative ease of release that the PokeDex suggests.

Gen 6 will likely be more interesting as it has only 3 Legendaries and 3 Mythicals, and also totaling only 72 new Pokemon, the fewest in any generation up till now. Eevee’s final evolution debuts here, and a few more unique-item evolutions are here as well, but for the most part, it’s fairly an easy release. If a tiered-release happens here, it will likely be only 10-20 at a time, much like Gen 4 right now. The scarcity of new Legendaries will likely be overshadowed by a large number of returning Legendaries with new Shinies to fill in the spaces. We could be seeing some very unique Special Research Quests, particularly for Zygarde and Hoopa.

Gen 7 is going to be a weird one. 7 Legendaries, 3 Mythicals, but the introduction of Ultra Beasts (9 total) will make this extremely crowded. It’s hard to believe that the Ultra Beasts won’t be Raid Bosses in some shape or form since they share Legendary-like stats. 88 total new Pokemon are available, but only 69 are non-Legendary or non-Ultra Beast. No evolutionary items are required this time around.

What are your thoughts for the future of Pokemon GO Generation releases? What do you expect?

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I think the division will continue to go up. It has too, or we will eventually catch up to the gen.
I’m guessing winter next year for gen 5.

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A fair point, but that’s a 14-month gap and that might be far too much for a fanbase such as that. I can see it getting longer with more and more Legendaries they can draw from to release Shinies, but I think it’s just a little too soon for that. Right now, it’s just Mewtwo, Gen 3–minus Kyogre–and the Legendary Beasts that don’t have their Shinies released. People are kind of sick of Mewtwo right now, so that may be too soon, and I don’t think even Shiny Regice, Regirock or Registeel would be enough to entice anyone right now.

Odds are if we get more Shinies this coming year, it will be Groudon, Rayquaza or the Legendary Beasts. I can see them giving Groudon and Rayquaza a two-week window like they did with Lugia, Kyogre and Ho-Oh initially, and that we could get another summer-round series of events that have designated days to Raikou, Entei and Suicune. It went so well last year that I’m sure they’d do it again and try to top it.

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Gen 8 will also no doubt be out at the end of this year, so it will more than likely hit Go in 2022 using your (accurate, in my opinion) timeline.

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Likely so, and we may even see Gen 9 by 2022, so this game will be going for a while.

EDIT: Well, Groudon is returning in a two-week window, but no word if it will be Shiny. It would be a waste if it wasn’t though.

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