‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ Daybreak Update: Massive Mass Outbreaks, Explained
Pokémon Legends: Arceus recently released its free Daybreak update, which builds on several of the Nintendo Switch game’s features — including Mass Outbreaks. Mass Outbreaks already gave players an opportunity to encounter large numbers of a specific Pokémon. With Massive Mass Outbreaks, they can investigate multiple clusters of Pokémon in one region. Here’s how it works.
What are Massive Mass Outbreaks in ‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’?
Mass Outbreaks allowed Pokémon Legends: Arceus players to investigate clusters of a specific Pokémon located in one region, boosting the number they could catch and increasing their chance of encountering a shiny.
Massive Mass Outbreaks take this concept and amplify it, notifying trainers of multiple Mass Outbreaks in one region — assuming they’ve downloaded Pokémon Legends: Arceus‘ Daybreak update and completed all the prerequisites.
Just like with Mass Outbreaks, players will learn of Massive Mass Outbreaks when passing through the gate at Jubilife Village. However, they won’t know which Pokémon are appearing throughout the region until they travel there. Even then, they’ll need to feed 5 Aguav Berries to Mai’s Munchlax upon arriving at the camp. Otherwise, the outbreaks will remain question marks on the map.
And those hoping to hunt for certain Pokémon will want to know which ones are appearing and where. Since Massive Mass Outbreaks only occur during storms, they run for a short amount of time. Needless to say, it would be nearly impossible to get through all the clusters — so, trainers will need to choose which ones take priority.
How to unlock Massive Mass Outbreaks
Even if it’s impossible to take advantage of every appearance in Massive Mass Outbreaks, they’re worth exploring — especially if you’re trying to complete the Hisui Pokédex. Pokémon Legends: Arceus tasks trainers with capturing and battling each Pokémon numerous times before completing a Pokédex entry, and this feature of the Daybreak update makes that process easier.
But even after downloading the software update, players won’t be able to jump right into these Massive Mass Outbreaks. First, they’ll need to unlock them. They can do so by completing a series of Requests.
As IGN notes, players hoping to utilize this feature will need to have beaten the Main Mission. Once they’ve done so — and downloaded Daybreak — they can head over to the Heights Camp in the Obsidian Fieldlands. Speaking with Mai will prompt Requests 95 to 101, all of which involve investigating Massive Mass Outbreaks.
Once players collect everything Mai has asked for, these events will begin spawning randomly on the map. From there, it’s easy to take full advantage of them — assuming you know how.
Taking advantage of ‘Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ new feature
So, how can Pokémon Legends: Arceus players take advantage of the Daybreak update’s newest feature? Farming Massive Mass Outbreaks isn’t all that different from doing so with Mass Outbreaks. Going through the gates at Jubilife Village repeatedly will help you run into them more frequently.
Sadly, Serebii suggests the chance of encountering a shiny during a Massive Mass Outbreak is slimmer than during an ordinary one. The website places the shiny rate at 315.54 without accounting for things like the Shiny Charm.
Still, players have seen success when investigating enough outbreaks — for finding Shinies and Alpha Pokémon. As YouTuber aDrive notes, trainers can cover more ground by flying over nearby outbreaks to see if any Shinies or Alphas are below.
Those hopping from one Massive Mass Outbreak to the next will also want to know what important symbols on the map mean. If the circle surrounding a cluster has stars on it, that indicates a special outbreak. Alphas may appear more often during these, and a second event may occur once you’ve caught all the Pokémon from the first one. Meanwhile, a Berry icon reveals the Pokémon at an outbreak will drop Aguav Berries (a convenient feature given their role in learning which hordes are on the map).
As with any kind of Pokémon farming, repetition is key to getting what you’re looking for. And another exciting element of Massive Mass Outbreaks is that they can feature starters and Pokémon exclusive to Space-Time Distortions. Needless to say, they’re well worth looking into.
The Daybreak update for Arceus is currently available on Nintendo Switch.
