After weeks of hints from data-mining updates, Niantic has finally announced the much-anticipated overhaul of Mega Evolutions in Pokémon Go. Originally added in August 2020, Mega Pokémon primarily served as another top-tier Raid Boss more than anything else. Actually Mega Evolving your own Pokémon was an expensive process requiring its own special Mega Energy and you only had 8 hours to take advantage of the various boosts it provided.

Now, rolling out in Australia and New Zealand today and steadily making their way around the world, big changes to those systems will mean more and easier Mega Raids and easier ways to Mega Evolve your own Pokémon. As well as a tease of an upcoming new Mega Evolution, Mega Kangaskhan.

Mega Levels

Under the new system, Mega Evolving your Pokémon will also add to an increase in it’s Mega Level. Each Mega Level increases the amount of bonuses you receive for Mega Evolving, all of which remain active during the Mega Evolution period. This maintains the existing Mega Evolution bonuses while also adding several new ones.

Existing bonuses

• Increased Candy when you catch Pokémon that are the same type as your Mega-Evolved Pokémon.
• While attacking with a Mega-Evolved Pokémon in a Raid Battle or a Gym battle, the attacks of other Trainers’ Pokémon challenging that same raid or Gym will deal more damage. Their Pokémon’s attacks will deal even more damage if the attack is the same type as your Mega-Evolved Pokémon.

New bonuses

• Increased chance of earning Candy XL when you catch Pokémon that are the same type as your Mega-Evolved Pokémon.
• Increased XP for catching Pokémon that are the same type as your Mega-Evolved Pokémon.
• A Pokémon’s rest period decreases as its Mega Level increases.

Mega Energy

Previously once you had Mega Evolved a Pokémon, subsequent Mega Evolutions of the same species would cost less Mega Energy – but you still needed to get more, which is sometimes easier said than done as only Mega Raids and Special Research tasks would provide any.

Now, after Mega Evolving using Mega Energy for the first time, that same Pokémon can subsequently Mega Evolve without requiring any Mega Energy at all. There is a catch, however, in that the Pokémon will need to rest for a time before Mega Evolving again. Mega Energy can be used to reduce this cooldown, with the amount required decreasing as the rest period becomes shorter. This means that while you can’t effectively keep a Pokémon Mega Evolved, you can rely on being able to Mega Evolve the same Pokémon again and again much more than before.

The changes overall are aimed at addressing the feedback of Mega Evolution in Pokémon Go being a “lot of investment for little reward” and it does seem like a fair crack at rebalancing them into being a much more available part of the game. Whether it solves all the complaints of fans about the mechanic up until now will remain to be seen, but hopefully it rolls out to the rest of the world pretty quickly so we can find out!