On July 6, 2015 Pokemon Go officially released in select areas. There was incredibly hype, massive crowds, and worldwide excitement. After that initial surge of activity, player engagement was invigorated with the first in-game event content (Halloween), a surprise drop of Johto releases (February 2017), and a rework in gym gameplay (June 2017).
The gym rework made gyms more available to more players. But it eliminated the need to power pokemon up to the absolute maximum CP to top the defender tiers. Defender motivation decay eliminated the need to power up ideal attackers to their maximum levels. Neither of these eliminated the need for catching various pokemon in the wild, but they definitely decreased those specific drivers for catching.
Then, almost one year after release, we got one of the most substantial changes to gameplay we have ever seen. On July 1, 2017 Raids were made available to essentially all players. Raiding became THE focus of gameplay.
- It was the way to obtain powerful pokemon.
- It was the way to fill some of the few remaining holes in a player's pokedex.
- The gameplay required more strategy than anything we had seen previously. Infographics and websites were brought into existence, or at least made much more visible, by the need to understand the strategy.
- It created increased utility for many pokemon that were previously an afterthought. (Shout out to the fellow trainers still holding the Golem they powered up to round out their attack team for Raikou)
- It drove social interaction and collaborative gameplay to an unseen level. Meetups, nest identification, rare spawns, and similar were still part of the game and topics of conversation. Raids came to dominate all those discussions. With their challenge, they explicitly drove players to find and play with other trainers.
Below is a table of T5 and Shiny T5 release dates, compiled from Bulbapedia.
| Year | Number of New T5 Release | Number of New T5 Shiny Release |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 10 | 0 |
| 2018 | 12 | 6 |
| 2019 | 14 | 13 |
| 2020 | 7 | 8 |
| 2021 | 10 | 12 |
| 2022 | 12 | 8 |
| 2023 | 2 | 9 |
| 2024 | 6 | 13 |
| 2025 | 6 | 4 |
| 2026 | 1 | 0 |
The New T5 Release count for 2025 and 2026 is debatable. Therian Enamorus (2026) is unquestionably valid. The other six are fusion related (Kyurem Black, Kyurem White, Solgaleo, Lunala, Crowned Zacian, Crowned Zamazenta). I would count them as "new" since, while the Pokemon was technically previously available, the release added significant utility or availability to them.
That being said, considering the initial release of the fusion forms and Therian Enamorus were both associated with short duration events, the actual number of days to raid "new" T5 pokemon in 2025 and 2026 were minuscule.
Today, April 9, marks the 1 year since the last T5 Shiny Release (Blacephalon and Stakataka). We have not seen a regular T5 raid shiny release since then.
There are a few T5 raid pokemon shiny releases we can still expect (Solgaleo, Lunala, both forms of Enamorus). And there are still some T5 pokemon releases we can still look forward to. But when you combine the past year and the forward-looking projection, it certainly feels like we have realized the end of T5 raids being the driver and focus of daily gameplay.
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I debated including Shadow T5 in the analysis above. Ultimately I chose to not consider them since I have not seen the daily, active interest in that content in my area. There is very little discussion of raiding (regular or shadow, period). I will see gym lobbies for regular T5 raids on the map much more frequently than I see gym lobbies for shadow T5. I get unsolicited friendlist raid support much more frequently for T5 raids than T5 shadow raids.
This analysis is not to say the game is dead. The decline of normal T5 Raid content has been offset by the addition of Shadow Raids, Dynamax, and Gigantamax content. Each of those add some new mechanics and strategy to gameplay and are a source of new content. Overall, I would summarize them as content that drives towards larger group gameplay associated with specific events. That is something different than the daily motivation for (smaller) group gameplay that T5 raids provided.
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T5 Raids
Born July 1, 2017
Died April 9, 2025
Forever in Our Hearts
by goshe7
11 Comments
once you’re as far into the dex as they are, new shinies will inevitably dry up. to say that T5 raiding “died” on the 9th of April last year is an extreme hyperbole. and raiding is still the way to get Zacian and Zamazenta, two of the best generalist Pokemon for Dynamax and raids.
The main driver now is inertia. You play because it’s what you do. You buy event passes because it’s what you do. Good content is basically done because the quality of the content makes so little difference in how much people play. That people that are going to play every event are going to play every event and those are the ones the pay so that’s all that matters
Spectrier and Glastrier want to know your localisation.
Year of the horse. We should ser these two kicking in 5* raids this fall, imo.
/prediction.
We still have Koraidon, Miraidon, the Loyal Three and the four treasures of ruin that would be 5* material.
Ogerpon could also be a 5* raid. Terapagos, not so much – I feel like it’s gonna pull a Poipole and be a season quest, but who knows
But yeah. Everything pre-gen 8 that could be a 5* raid is in.
There are, and always will be, new and returning players to the game. T5 raiding did not die at all, it is still err and always will. What is true, is that T5 raiding for old players has plateau’d. There’s a big difference.
i mean they are kinda out of legendaries to throw in raids for shiny debuts (not counting paradox, that is gunna be a different release most likely….) but Lunala and Solgaleo will probably be released for Alola Tour along with Cosmog possibly. Enamorus for prob next years Valentines Day or some random event. Eternatus probably a LONG ways away. Kubfu for its evos gmax debut at some point. Zygarde was a missed opprotunity during Kalos Tour but was expected, itll get saved for the mega debut in GO. I would expect alot of the remaining legendaries to be thrown in seasonal research or something minor to keep them rolling and overtime debut the shiny or something in a GO Pass. We probably couldve gotten more if they actually dropped paradox in December-Feb like what was planned but pivoted away… so def kinda a bummer there. Hopefully Summer…. or Fall season can introduce them and help bring in new content for raids possibly too.
There are a lot of reasons to do them daily.
Not everyone has every shiny. Not everyone has every hundo. Not everyone has XL for a level 50 or for a team when needed if you want the best team of counters for something
And so on.
I’m okay with this honestly, because it doesn’t push me to go raiding all the time like I used to with new releases. It’s fun, but also money and time consuming. I’m happy to focus on other aspects of the game
The game will always have players who want to raid, be they hardcore players who raid everything or new/ returning players who want a shiny. I’m interested to see what happens with the game in general now it’s so close to having caught up with everything though.
Great post, but wasn’t this always the inevitability of Pokemon Go? We’ve always known that for the “good years” they were releasing content faster than the main series games were, which meant eventually, we would hit a point where all new releases would be a slow drip so that PoGo didn’t “catch up” with the MSGs. Now they are finding ways to keep raids somewhat fresh like with backgrounds, shadows, and Gigantamax. We will probably mostly see “new” content releases during ticketed events like Go Fest and Wild Area which are now the focal points of the game, with the long stretches of time in between meant to keep you casually playing until it’s time to pay for the next ticket. I feel grateful I was able to enjoy the game while it was still raining down new content on us and furthermore grateful that the FOMO is much more even keel now.
Dude, but there are some Pokemons whose are not release yet on T5 raids 😛
it’s ok since those unreleased pokes are super weak anyway, i’d rather have a repeating rotation of the strongest released ones