Now that the Kanto Celebration is over, Pokemon Go players have been greeted with the news that regional raid bosses have been introduced into the game. The celebration event saw a complete takeover of Kanto region Pokemon, including Onix and Kabutops as Tier 3 raid bosses, and fans have been hit with further changes to available raid opponents. The legendary Pokemon Latios and Latias went live on April 2 introducing the idea of regional raid bosses to the community, and now there is a new raft of Pokemon to contend with.

With the introduction of raids to Pokemon GO back in June 2017 swathes of Pokemon have been made available as raid bosses and these latest additions are much the same, but the region system is a new twist. The Pokemon now available as raid bosses are as follows:

  • Walrein, Duskull and Pinsir are available as raid bosses in the areas where Latios currently resides as the legendary raid boss (North America, South America and Africa).
  • Houndoom, Shuppet, and Granbull are available as raid bosses in the areas were Latias currently resides as the legendary raid boss (Europe and Asia).

Although the Pokemon on offer are slightly underwhelming, this is the first time in the game's history that non-legendary region exclusive raid bosses have been made available and more Pokemon in raids can only be seen as a good thing. As well as this it is believed that the regional Pokemon are tied to their corresponding legendary and will switch when the corresponding member of the Eon Duo changes regions on May 8, although this is yet to be confirmed.

Compared to Latias and Latios these latest raid bosses should be easy to clear, they should be relatively comfortable as a duo or even solo, and players should not have to go far out of their way to confront them before the May 8 deadline. It is also currently unclear whether or not this represents a permanent shift in how Niantic approach the idea of raid bosses or if the introduction of region specific Pokemon in raids is an anomaly in this case.

Pokemon GO is currently available in select regions on Android and iOS devices.

Source: Pokemon GO Hub