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It looks like Pokémon Go is going to add Shadow Raids to the game, a new type of raid battle featuring Shadow Pokémon. The PokeMiners, a group of data miners covering the mobile title, have discovered this feature in a new game update.

“There are 5 levels, and there is a new raid ticket specifically for these new Shadow Raids. You get additional XP from these Shadow Raids and they appear to be remotable,” the group stated on Twitter.

Shadow Pokémon have only been available through battling members of Team Go Rocket so far. Players have to defeat these NPCs in Pokémon battles in order to get a chance at catching one of their Shadow creatures.

Shadow Pokémon have a higher Attack stat than regular monsters, though they also take more damage in return. Their strong offense makes them highly valuable Pokémon in many PvP and PvE situations, though they also come with the drawback of having Frustration as their Charged Move when you catch them. Frustration can only be forgotten during specific events with regular TMs.

Since the amount of existing Shadow Pokémon has grown a lot over the years, players would definitely be happy about having another route to obtain specific species that is less dependent on which Rocket Grunts they meet.

From the PokeMiners’ post it seems like there will be five Shadow Raid tiers, which would be equal to the regular raid system of the past. This featured five tiers at one point, though Tier 2 and 4 were then folded into Tier 1 and 3. Tier 5 battles contain Legendary Pokémon, which might mean that Shadow Legendaries could become available through Tier 5 Shadow Raids.

Battling Giovanni is the only way of getting access to Shadow Legendaries at the moment, which is very limiting both in the quantity of how many Shadow Legendaries you can get and in the variety of available Shadow Legendaries, as the Rocket leader only switches things up every three months or so.

Shadow Raids appearing to be available remotely is definitely positive news, though it’s still unclear how you get tickets for these raids. We’ll have to wait and see if they are going to be purchasable in the in-app store or if you can earn them in some way – perhaps as rewards for Research Tasks.