How to evolve Popplio into Brionne and Primarina in Pokemon GO

How to evolve Popplio into Brionne and Primarina in Pokemon GO?
How can you evolve Popplio into Brionne and Primarina in Pokemon GO? (Image via The Pokemon Company/Niantic)

Popplio came to Pokemon GO during the Welcome to Alola event in March 2022 alongside its evolutions Brionne and Primarina. Since then, it has appeared in various capacities in Niantic's mobile title, and the same can be said for its evolved forms. But how can you evolve Popplio into Brionne and then Primarina yourself? The answer is simple: exactly like most Pocket Monsters.

As with the vast majority of creatures in Pokemon GO, Popplio evolves into Brionne and Primarina using candies. There aren't any evolution gimmicks for this Water-type starter Pokemon, so you won't have to worry about anything stopping you from rapidly evolving Popplio all the way to Primarina.


Breaking down Popplio's evolutionary process in Pokemon GO

Popplio in Pokemon GO's Season of Alola trailer (Image via Niantic)
Popplio in Pokemon GO's Season of Alola trailer (Image via Niantic)

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Overall, you'll need 125 Popplio Candy in Pokemon GO to fully evolve Popplio into Brionne and then Primarina. You will require 25 candies to evolve Popplio into Brionne, with 100 additional candies required to evolve Brionne into Primarina. This is the standard way most Pokemon evolve, so there aren't any surprises to worry about.

The lone task with evolving Popplio in Pokemon GO comes down to candy. 125 isn't a particularly large quantity of candy for two evolutions, but if you're having trouble collecting enough candies, you can look to these methods:

  • Catching Popplio in any capacity, be it in the wild, raids, etc.
  • While it hasn't appeared in this capacity since the Season of Alola, there may be future opportunities to hatch 5km eggs to obtain Popplio and extra candies.
  • Using a Pinap or Silver Pinap Berry before catching Popplio will increase its candy yields when caught, which is crucial no matter where this Water-type starter Pokemon is encountered.
  • If you have a Popplio, you can set it as your Buddy Pokemon and accrue candy as you travel.
  • If you've caught any extra Popplio, transfer them for extra candy.
  • Taking part in event research during events where Popplio is a featured Pokemon can yield plenty of Stardust and Popplio Candy.
  • If you have any Rare Candies, you can convert them into Popplio Candy. If you don't have any Rare Candies, you can obtain them by completing raids or winning in the GO Battle League.
An upcoming Popplio Community Day is the perfect opportunity to evolve Popplio in Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)
An upcoming Popplio Community Day is the perfect opportunity to evolve Popplio in Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)

Once you have your 125 candies for Popplio, all that's required to evolve it is to press the Poke Ball icon on the main screen to open your menu, select Pokemon, and then select Popplio. Scroll down its page and tap the evolve button. Once Popplio has become Brionne, you can follow the same procedure to evolve it into Primarina as well.

As a bonus, there's an upcoming Pokemon GO Popplio Community Day event taking place on August 31, 2024, from 2-5 pm local time. During this event, encountering Popplio (and its newly-introduced shiny variant) will be much easier than usual, and there are even bonuses for evolving Popplio to Primarina, including obtaining a Primarina that already knows Hydro Cannon.