Team Rocket and Shadow Pokémon have landed in Pokémon Go

Prepare yourself for double the trouble because Team Rocket is blasting off at the speed of light into Pokémon Go.

Now, various dark-coloured PokéStops featuring the villainous organization’s signature ‘R’ have been added to the game.

There you go!
Tell Professor Willow we took care of that Grunt 💪🏻#PokemonGO pic.twitter.com/Te0D3VMtUr

— Couple of Gaming (@coupleofgaming) July 22, 2019

Placed at each of these special PokéStops is a Team Rocket Grunt and their corrupted Shadow Pokémon. You’ll have to beat each Grunt in a battle that plays out similarly to those with team leaders.

If you win, the Grunt will run off and leave their Shadow Pokémon behind, which you can then catch using Premier Balls. From there, the Shadow Pokémon can be purified on their information screens using their respective candy and dust.

There are a few benefits to purifying a Pokémon. To start, their Shadow versions have reduced CP, making them less viable in battle. Additionally, Shadow Pokémon can learn Return, a Normal-type attack. Finally, some players are reporting on Twitter that purified Pokémon require less candy to evolve and less dust to power up.

Note that other players have mentioned that these Team Rocket PokéStops are somewhat uncommon, so you may have to search far and wide to find one.

Image credit: The Pokémon Company

Source: Niantic