Pokemon Sword & Shield Locks Down Shiny Starters And Legendaries

Previous methods for getting shiny starters or legendaries won't work in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield.

One of the first things a trainer does in any Pokemon game is choose which starter Pokemon they will partner with. In the newly released games, players choose between the water-type Sobble, the fire-type Scorbunny, or the grass-type Grookey. Game Freak has made it so trainers can't continually restart their games in hopes of seeing a shiny version of these starters, implementing a so-called "shiny lock."

There's a discerning type of trainer that has the patience to restart their game hundreds of times with the hope of triggering a shiny spawn. Getting a shiny starter or legendary is a particularly demanding task, and Game Freak has made it even harder this time around. They will not naturally appear in their shiny, discolored form. 

That said, if you're truly determined to get a shiny Sobble, good old fashioned breeding might do the trick. Not too far into the game, players will have access to the Pokemon Daycare where they can drop off their Pokemon pals to play and produce eggs. Breeding a bunch of any single Pokemon will increase your chances of hatching a shiny. 

Despite this "shiny lock" it is, in a sense, easier than ever to get a shiny Pokemon. Although shiny Pokemon will not appear in the overworld as they did in Pokemon: Let's Go – Eevee! and Let's Go – Pikachu!, the "chaining mechanic" introduced in these games still applies. Catch the same type of wild Pokemon over and over and you will greatly increase your chances of finding a shiny variant of that Pokemon. You want a shiny new Ponyta? Repeatedly catch Ponytas without breaking for any other Pokemon. 

We've yet to actually see what shiny starters and legendaries look like in Sword and Shield. If we want to, it seems we're going to have to breed them the old fashioned way.