What are 12km egg hatches for Pokemon GO's upcoming Team GO Rocket Takeover? (January 2023)

12km eggs will see some slight changes during Pokemon GO
12km eggs will see some slight changes during Pokemon GO's latest Team GO Rocket Takeover (Image via Niantic)

Team GO Rocket will return to Pokemon GO during Team GO Rocket Takeover, which begins on February 1, 2023, at 10:00 am local time. During this event, trainers will take on the insidious criminal group and their leaders in order to save their stolen and corrupted shadow Pokemon.

There will be plenty of ways to acquire Pokemon during Team GO Rocket Takeover, including hatching eggs. This includes Strange Eggs, otherwise known as 12km eggs, since they require 12 kilometers of travel to hatch by default. These red-spotted eggs can be acquired by defeating Team GO Rocket's leaders.

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The upcoming egg pool for Strange Eggs is more or less the same as before, but one fewer Pokemon can now be obtained from hatching.

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Which Pokemon can hatch from Strange Eggs in Pokemon GO's Team GO Rocket Takeover?

Inkay has been removed from the upcoming Pokemon GO egg pool (Image via The Pokemon Company)
Inkay has been removed from the upcoming Pokemon GO egg pool (Image via The Pokemon Company)

The 12km egg pools in Pokemon GO tend to remain about the same over fairly long periods of time. The same Pocket Monsters that were found in 2022 can still be found in Strange Egg hatches with regularity.

However, as of the upcoming Team GO Rocket Takeover event, Inkay will be removed from the egg pool. This leaves a grand total of 11 different species that can be obtained from hatching the long-distance eggs.

Listed below is every hatchable Pokemon from Strange Eggs during Team GO Rocket Takeover:

  • Larvitar
  • Absol
  • Pawniard
  • Skorupi
  • Sandile
  • Scraggy
  • Deino
  • Vullaby
  • Pancham
  • Skrelp
  • Salandit
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Longtime Pokemon GO players will notice that the egg pool listed above is about the same as it has been for some time, with Inkay being the lone notable omission.

Salandit is the newest addition to the 12km egg pool. It has been a part of the mobile title since April 2022, so the creature is by no means new to most players at this point.

It's by design that Strange Eggs provide Dark-type Pokemon almost in their entirety, as they're retrieved from Team GO Rocket and likely hold some form of sinister power, much like Shadow Pokemon do.

This may be why Niantic has been reticent to add new creatures to this particular Pokemon GO egg pool. However, new additions would certainly be welcome in 2023 after multiple years of hatching more or less the same Pokemon.

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Considering the time and resources required to hatch multiple 12km eggs in Pokemon GO, many players believe that Strange Eggs should be reworked to provide more Pokemon to hatch.

Compared to every other egg group, Strange Eggs receive the least amount of attention. Eggs with smaller hatch distances do tend to rotate with new Pokemon at a steadier clip and with much more varied options when it comes to elemental types.

Perhaps 2023 will be the year that Niantic addresses Pokemon GO's Strange Eggs. For now, there has been no indication that a major overhaul or a new egg pool is on the horizon. However, the year is only now closing out its first month, and there is still plenty of time for Niantic to implement new content throughout the year.