If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.
Not near a beach? You may still be in luck.
Image credit: Eurogamer / The Pokémon Company / OSM
Pokémon Go has quietly added Wigglet, the white-coloured and suspiciously-shaped species similar to Digglet that debuted in Nintendo Switch games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and raised a lot of eyebrows.
Wigglet’s introduction to Pokémon Go has been unusually low-key, with no official announcement of its appearance in the game on the official site. Still, Niantic has pulled off similar surprise-launches before, and Wigglet’s appearance now seems tied to the rollout of Pokémon Go’s admittedly very pretty new overworld visual refresh, which highlights the in-game biome you’re currently located within.
Fans quickly realised that Wigglet was only spawning in the game’s new beach biome – which makes it relatively accessible for a lot of the UK. But not everyone lives near a beach, and with some further research, the creature’s exact possible location can be nailed down.
Pokémon Go uses map data from the open-source OpenStreetMap, which you can query yourself to find specific types of locations with a bit of basic coding knowledge (or, copy and paste). A simple thread on top Pokémon Go fan reddit TheSilphRoad by user InsaneNutter explains how.
Essentially, it’s a matter of loading up the OSM tool and pasting in the code provided here. With that, you can see there are numerous locations across the UK tagged as beaches (correctly or incorrectly) which should also provide Wigglets to catch – which could be handy if you live in the middle of the Midlands.
Some inland locations look to actually be lakes or resevoirs, which have areas tagged as beaches. Milton Keynes, for example, appears to be a Wigglet hotspot. Strangely, I’m not surprised.
It’s been a busy time in Pokémon Go, which has also recently refreshed its avatar system – albeit to a far more mixed response. Unofficially, the game also recently celebrated 4/20.
