It has already been almost a month since Pokémon UNITE’s last roster addition, but it looks like the game is set to add yet another playable Legendary Pokémon in celebration of Pokémon Day in February.
While Legendary Pokémon are no strangers to UNITE, only one of them has been playable before. The likes of Zapdos, Rayquaza, and a few other Legendary Pokémon have been featured in the game—all of them exclusively as objectives for various maps. Urshifu broke that trend in December when it became the first playable Legendary in the game.
Mythical Pokémon, which are classified differently from true Legendary Pokémon in the main Pokémon titles, like Zeraora, Mew, and Hoopa are more commonly added to the game—with Hoopa actually being added to the game as part of 2022’s Pokémon Day celebration.
Urshifu opened the door for capital L Legendaries to enter the roster and, according to data mines, Zacian will be added as a playable Pokémon when the Pokémon Day Warm Up event begins at some point in February. This would make Galar’s Warrior Pokémon the first box art Legendary to actually be useable in non-special modes.
It is currently unclear if it will have a mechanic tied to its alternate forms, where it will appear first as its Hero of Many Battles form and then obtain the Rusted Sword at some point to change into its Crowned Sword form as it levels up. All we have currently are internal images of Zacian in its Crowned Sword form paired with Pokémon Day Warm Up, courtesy of data miner ElChicoEevee.
As far as its placement, we already know that Comfey is going to be added to the game as the next playable Pokémon thanks to previous data mines that have the Fairy-type fully programmed and playable using third-party software. ElChicoEevee also notes that Zacian is likely to be added right after Comfey in February.
TiMi Studio has consistently put out at least one Pokémon per month since UNITE was first released in July 2021, with December seeing Urshifu and Dragapult added to the game. Based on internal data, that streak might break with Comfey listed for a Feb. 2 launch, which means Zacian could release closer to Pokémon Day on Feb. 27—maybe even on that day and date.
