Pokémon Go's next season themed around Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Pokémon Go's fifth season has been named as the Season of Heritage, and will be themed around January's big release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus for Nintendo Switch.

Artwork for the new season was teased by Pokémon Go developer Niantic last night, ahead of the season's full details arriving later this week.

Fans had expected some kind of tie-in for Legends: Arceus - traditionally, Pokémon Go has featured some kind of event for big Pokémon game launches. But the theming of an entire season around the game, seemingly, is a big step up.

What do we expect? Well, Legends: Arceus is set in an ancient version of the Sinnoh region, then named the Hisui region. Already, we've seen glimpses of some new Pokémon forms and evolutions exclusive to the Hisuian region. It's likely some of these will become available in Go.

There's a fluffy-headed Fire/Rock-type Hisuian Growlithe, for example, a new Stantler evolution named Wyrdeer, and an alternative evolution for Scyther named Kleavor. More have also been teased - including via an Easter egg in this month's Pokémon Shining Diamond and Brilliant Pearl.

The big thing, though, would be the debut of Arceus itself. This highly-anticipated Mythical Pokémon - said to be the god of all Pokémon - is able to become any of the franchise's 18 Pokémon types (Rock, Water, Fire, etc.) and holds the highest base stats of any creature in the franchise. It'll be interesting to see how Arceus is released and how its type-changing will be handled.

The Season of Heritage launches tomorrow, 1st December at 10am local time - there's more over on our Pokémon Go Season of Heritage guide.