Legendary Pokémon Rayquaza joins Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go players will soon be able to fight Rayquaza, the flying- and dragon-type legendary that is best remembered as the cover star of Pokémon Emerald. When it begins to appear in Raid battles on Feb. 9, Rayquaza will mark the third Hoenn-region legendary Pokémon to be available in the mobile game.

Niantic said that Rayquaza will only be obtainable for a limited time, however. The Pokémon will post up at gyms worldwide only until March 16, taking over for the currently available legendary, Kyogre. (The notoriously tough-to-catch Kyogre makes its exit on Feb. 14, so there’s some slight overlap between the two.)

Alongside Rayquaza come several other Pokémon from the third-generation games that can be found in the wild. These include, from the looks of it, the intimidating dragon Salamence, the flying tree Tropius and sentient wind chime Chimecho.

To make it easier for players to get their hands on these new additions and other Pokémon from the Hoenn region, Niantic said that every Pokémon players encounter in the wild from now until Feb. 13 will have originated from Pokémon Ruby or Sapphire.

Still to come on the legendary Pokémon front are Jirachi and Deoxys, at least where the third-generation games are concerned. And now that the Hoenn Pokédex is almost complete, we can start getting excited for the introduction of fourth-generation monsters.