Pokémon Go Fans Think They May Have Figured Out Something Niantic Has Kept Hidden For Years

Pokémon Go has finally introduced Silicobra, a monster found primarily in desert areas in the main games. When developer Niantic announced that the snake creature was finally coming to the monster collecting app, it said players would need to seek it out in “desert-like areas.” That’s not exactly specific, so players have had to go outside and test their local geography to see if Pokémon Go would register dry, sandy areas as desert-like. Well, fans now think they may have figured out how Niantic determines which in-game biome a given real-world area will correspond to, and it’s through a United States government website.

Fans on the popular Go subreddit The Silph Road conducted a case study in Christchurch, New Zealand testing if Silicobra would spawn in areas labeled as “Land Cover: Sparsely or Non-vegetated” in the United States Geological Survey. Early results seemed promising, so the group also cross referenced the USGS’ data for other biome-specific Pokémon spawns like Toedscool, which seems to primarily spawn in areas marked as “Grassland,” “Shrubland,” and “Forest.” One Pokémon whose spawn areas the group wasn’t able to verify is Wiglett, which spawns in coastal/marine biomes, which USGS doesn’t track.

For the moment this is just a plausible theory, as it’s not been thoroughly confirmed, but if players have cracked the code on biome-based spawns, they might have found a valuable resource for helping players track down specific Pokémon, and it’s the sort of thing some players feel Niantic should have provided long ago.

“I love Pokémon for the underlying numbers and math that goes into it,” Redditor rachycarebear wrote. “I love developing and testing theories to figure out how and why they might happen, but that should be limited to an optional and highly technical style of gameplay. The basics of ‘find cute creature and catch it’ shouldn’t require this level of research. There needs to be enough easily available information that if I want to catch the Pokémon, I can. Tell me Wigletts are near bodies of water or Toedscools are in parks and I can do that with a basic familiarity of my local geography. Then sure, I’ll enjoy examining which resources are being utilized how, figuring out which areas will have the best hunting, and strategizing to optimize game play and maximize spawns. But that’s because I enjoy that stuff, not because it’s the only way to get the new release.”

Silicobra is part of a “Sustainability Week” event that is running from April 14 to 20. Despite being an event Pokémon, the snake seems to be a rare spawn even in confirmed desert areas, though some players are reporting it showing up in other areas like parks and nearby rivers.