Right now, you won’t find any Team Rocket GO leaders with any new Pokémon, any new Shadow Pokémon to rescue, or see Giovanni with any new legendary shadow Pokémon in Pokémon Go. To help encourage Pokémon Go players to stay inside, developer Niantic has decided to put a pause to these research tasks to help slow the spread of COVID-19, which has prevented many people from leaving their homes all over the world.
These events will return sometime at the end of September 2020. We likely will not receive any new updates about Team Rocket GO have been doing until the start of October 2020. We’ll probably see the return of the Team Rocket GO Leaders with new shadow Pokémon, Giovanni having captured a new legendary Pokémon, and a push for grunts to capture more PokéStops that you need to battle.
By preventing more Team Rocket GO Special Research tasks from happening each month, players who cannot go outside during this time won’t feel left out or motivated to leave their homes. Niantic has been attempting to drive more stay-at-home friendly content, such as straightforward research tasks, having Pokémon spawn more often in residential areas, giving trainers research tasks without having to visit a PokéStop, and much more.
Once the spread of COVID-19 begins to decline, and more countries open up around the world, then Pokémon Go will introduce more Team Rocket GO events.
For now, players will have to focus on attempting to visit PokéStops with Team Rocket GO grunts, and taking down team leaders. You can still complete any Special Research tasks available in Pokémon Go. It’s a great time to catch up, and each time you complete one of the Research Tasks, you unlock the next one, giving you the chance to run through all of the Team Rocket GO Research tasks and rescue all of the legendary Pokémon captured by Giovanni and his leaders.
