Sylveon is finally in Pokémon Go – How to evolve Eevee into the fabulous Fairy type
The fan-favourite final evolution of Eevee, the fabulous Fairy-type Sylveon, has found its way to Pokémon Go at last.
The last evolutions of Eevee to be added to Pokémon Go, Leafeon and Glaceon, arrived in the game on 17 May 2019. Players have been waiting over two years to add the striking Sylveon to their Pokédex and complete their roster of Eeveelutions, and as of 10am today (local time, depending on player location) they can finally do so.
Sylveon’s introduction comes as part of the ongoing Luminous Legends Y event, which has also introduced legendary Pokémon Xerneas and Yveltal to the game. All three debuted in the mainline series games Pokémon X and Y in 2013.
There are actually two ways to acquire a Sylveon in-game. The first is simple – go to any Eevee you’ve caught, and change its name to Kira. Close down the game completely, to ensure the name change is saved at the server end. Restart the game and go to the Eevee you’ve just renamed. You should see the icon next to the ‘Evolve’ field has changed to a silhouette of Sylveon. From there, spend a mere 25 Eevee candy – Pokémon Go’s in-game resource for powering up and evolving Pokémon – to evolve it, and you’ll have your very own Sylveon! You can then rename Kira back to Sylveon, if you prefer.
Renaming an Eevee as Kira before evolving it echoes the method to evolve one into Psychic-type Espeon by naming it Sakura, or a Dark-type Umbreon by naming it Tamao. Here, the name Kira is a nod to Pokémon Sun and Moon, where an end-game quest saw you tracking down and battling eight trainers, each of whom specialised in one of the Eeveelutions. For Sylveon, you sought out another woman named Sakura, but in one of the game’s more poignant moments, learned that she has passed away, and instead battled her granddaughter, Kira.
You can also use the names Linnea to evolve Eevee into Grass-type Leafeon, Rea for Ice-type Glaceon – both names from the same Sun and Moon quest as Kira – and Rainer, Sparky, or Pyro for Water-type Vaporeon, Electric-type Jolteon, or Fire-type Flareon, respectively. The last three take their names from characters in a classic episode of the Pokémon anime.
However, renaming an Eevee to Kira (or any of the other names for their specific evolutions) will only work once. If you want to go into Pokémon battles with an entire squad of Sylveons, it’s going to take a lot of time. The second evolution route requires you to set an Eevee as your Buddy Pokémon, and then earning 70 friendship hearts with it. This tracks with how you evolve Eevee into Sylveon in the mainline games, where you need to build a high affection or friendship level with an Eevee first.
In Pokémon Go, when you first set a Pokémon as a Buddy, you can earn a maximum of 12 hearts per day, and one of those includes finding a brand-new Pokéstop, so realistically for most people, it’s a maximum of 11. As your friendship level increases, you can earn bonus hearts when your Buddy Pokémon brings you gifts, but you’re still looking at a solid week or more of playing in order to evolve each extra Sylveon.
Whichever method you use, it seems you can evolve any kind of Eevee into Sylveon, including Shiny versions – rarer catches with different colour palettes – or Pokémon Go exclusives such as ‘Flower Crown’ Eevee, which was only available during a previous special event and has the cute critter wearing a ring of daisies.
For some reason, Sylveon has long been a favourite Pokémon of many LGBTQ+ players – maybe it’s the pastel colour scheme, those natural flowing ribbons, or the fact it looks like it should be strutting down a Drag Race runway. Whatever the reason, we’re delighted to finally be able to have one in our roster on Pokémon Go.
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