Annihilape made its debut in Pokémon Go as part of Jan. 2024’s “Raging Battles” event.
The Gen 9 fighting- and ghost-type evolves from Primeape, and are both part of Gen 1 Mankey’s evolution line.
There is a special requirement to fulfill before evolving Primeape — but there are a few tricks to speed up the process if you want your hands on Annihilape as soon as possible.
How to evolve Primeape and get Annihilape in Pokémon Go
Following the arrival of Jan. 2024’s “Raging Battles” event, you can evolve Primeape into Annihilape by defeating 30 ghost- or psychic-type Pokémon in battle while Primeape is your buddy.
Furthermore, know that Primeape does not need to defeat these Pokémon or participate in the battle to progress this evolution requirement. In other words, Primeape simply needs to be your buddy as you defeat ghost- and psychic-types with other Pokémon.
Even with this in mind, on the surface, it requires a dose of luck in encountering those specific types in gyms, raids or Go Battle League. Thankfully, there’s a few methods you can use to speed through the process, including:
- Battling a friend in local battles with their party filled with low level ghost- or psychic-type Pokémon
- Finding a Team Rocket grunt which has a team of ghost- or psychic-type Pokémon, defeating the first two Pokémon, then purposely losing and replaying the battle
- Fighting Blanche (found in the Training area at the bottom of the Battle screen) in Master League, who will have a Metagross in her line-up (thanks to The Silph Road sub-reddit for the tip!)
Image: Niantic / The Pokémon Company
The “battling a friend” method is by far the fastest, but requires either someone willing to battle you over and over (make sure you return the favor so they can evolve their own Primeape), or having a secondary account on another device and to go through the steps solo.
Fighting Blanche is perhaps the most solo friendly option, but it’s also the most time consuming of these methods. Either way, these are faster than happening upon these types naturally, so turn to them if you’re keen to getting Annihilape as soon as possible.
Can Annihilape be shiny in in Pokémon Go?
On its debut, Annihilape can be shiny in Pokémon Go. This is because the prior Pokémon in the evolution chain — Mankey and Primeape — are already shiny eligible. (They made their shiny debut as part of March 2019’s “Battle Showdown” event.)
This means if you already have a shiny Mankey or Primeape, then you can rest easy knowing it’ll eventually become a shiny Annihilape when you eventually evolve it.
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