It was just a few weeks ago when Pokemon GO developer Niantic added new characters to the game, letting players catch Gen 3 Pokemon in the wild. However, according to new files uncovered by a dataminer, plenty more hotly anticipated characters could be on the way soon.

ZeChrales, a Pokemon GO dataminer who is famous for their exploits, has made another interesting discovery. According to the newly discovered data, the models for legendary Pokemon Ho-Oh and Celebi are now available on Niantic's servers. A shiny variation of Ho-Oh has also been found.

The 3D models were found by tricking the Pokemon GO game client into believing that players already had Ho-Oh and Celebi in their Pokedex, allowing the 3D models to be rendered.Ze  Chrales explains that these legendaries should not have male/female icons and that the icons in the below screenshots are a result of "some residual bug of blind code edition on my side." It should be noted that the 2D sprites for Ho-Oh (both shiny and normal) and Celebi are not yet available.

Pokemon GO Celebi model leak
Pokemon GO shiny Ho-Oh model
Pokemon GO Ho-Oh model

It's also worth pointing out that the other side of the tower duo, Lugia, is already in the game and so it stands to reason that Ho-Oh will eventually be added too. Moreover, this isn't even the first indication that shiny legendary Pokemon could be made available in Pokemon GO.

Earlier this year, ZeChrales found sprites for shiny variations of Lugia, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. These have yet to be made available either but it's possible that Niantic is just laying the groundwork before releasing all of these legendary shinies in the game.

At this point, it's unclear exactly how or when Niantic might make these shiny legendary Pokemon available. Niantic ushered in Gen 3 Pokemon (including shiny Sableye and other Gen 3 shinies) using the Halloween event. Likewise, legendary Pokemon were first made available alongside the much-hyped (but ultimately disastrous) Pokemon GO Fest in Chicago. Other recent major additions to the game, such as shiny Pikachu, have also been introduced as other things are going on.

Pokemon GO is already set to add more Gen 3 Pokemon to the game this December but presumably, Niantic will be hosting some sort of Thanksgiving event for the game too. Adding more shinies would certainly be a good way of getting players into the festive spirit, so fingers crossed that the developer will make an announcement soon.

Pokemon GO is out now on Android and iOS.

Source: Reddit