It's April Fools today, so everyone is having to deal with hilariously outlandish announcements, like the Sanrio x Higurashi: When They Cry crossover, and/or pressing X to doubt even legitimately real ones. It's also a time when developers and publishers spend the whole day messing with their player bases. For example, Pokemon Sword & Shield players looking to take part in Max Raid Battles today will find themselves forced to deal with one, and only one, Pokemon.
As a reminder, Max Raid Battles in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield let players work together to battle against giant Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokemon, where victory earns them plenty of rewards and an opportunity to catch the Pokemon in question. Developer Game Freak holds regular events to change up what kinds of Pokemon can be encountered (the last one was all about Flying and Fairy types); but, for today, all trainers will be encountering is Magikarp, the original joke Pokemon that is almost borderline useless in battle and infamous for initially only knowing the Splash attack, which literally does nothing.
The joke doesn't end there either. While Magikarp may be otherwise useless, many trainers will catch one anyway since it can be evolved into the powerful and ferocious Gyarados. But as an extra kick in the teeth, these giant Magikarp can not be caught so don't bother stocking up on Poke Balls before battling them. It's arguably still worth battling them since they give the usual rewards like Rare Candies and Pearls upon defeat, with the higher leveled Magikarp dropping better rewards, according to Serebii.
For anyone who finds this genuinely irritating, the Magikarp event is only expected to last for the rest of the day and will have at least wrapped up by tomorrow. At that point, Game Freak will have probably announced the actual next Max Raid event.
Sword & Shield aren't the only Pokemon games to have their own April Fools event. Pokemon GO is running one of its own, although it's lasting for a bit longer (a week) and doesn't focus on only one Pokemon. It focuses on specifically three Pokemon known for being tricky pranksters and troublemakers.
Thankfully, there have been no fake announcements regarding new game releases, anything related to the 25th-anniversary celebrations, or the already confirmed titles like the Diamond & Pearl remakes or New Pokemon Snap, which is still on course to release at the end of this month.
Pokemon Sword & Shield are available for Nintendo Switch.
Source: Serebii