Highlights

  • Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk DLC features easter eggs and callbacks to the Unova region and Gen 5, which fans are enjoying.
  • The expansion introduces a Nature Preserve-like area with a fixed encounter with a non-shiny Haxorus, which should have been shiny on top of its Stellar type.
  • The DLC offers ways to shiny hunt with the Herba Mystica sandwiches with ease, so Game Freak missed an opportunity to make the special Haxorus encounter shiny for added excitement.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet got a huge expansion in the form of The Indigo Disk, which has plenty of ways to keep players engaged even further out in 2024 thanks to intense grinds and the potential of amazing rewards or even Legendary Pokemon. Not all of the DLC's contents are available right out of the gate, and players are wondering if there will ever be Tera Raids for The Indigo Disk's new Paradox Pokemon - Raging Bolt and Gouging Fire for Scarlet or Iron Crown and Iron Boulder for Violet, which are currently required to complete the Pokedex and are otherwise unobtainable in the other version. Among the things that are unlocked over time is a great Unova callback in the form of a fixed encounter in the Terarium, but Game Freak dropped the ball by not doubling down on it.

It's hard to tell whether Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk is a hint towards Unova games being in the works, a celebration of the region to eventually skip Gen 5 remakes, or something in between. Still, the multitude of easter eggs based on Unova and Gen 5 are something that fans are cherishing for the time being, but the expansion should have gone all the way through with one of them.

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One of the most blatant easter eggs is the presence of Chargestone Cavern in the Terarium, which is eerily similar to Chargestone Cave from Gen 5 games, but it's far from the only one. Archaludon being a callback to Skyarrow Bridge, Lacey being Clay's daughter, and Drayton being Drayden's nephew are just some of them, scratching the surface of the many possibilities. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk features another Unova-themed easter egg, with it being an area in the Canyon Biome that's almost a one-to-one recreation of Pokemon Black 2 and White 2's Nature Preserve.

The Nature Preserve is a forest area from Gen 5 that was only accessible via a special permit obtained from Professor Juniper whenever players managed to see every Pokemon in the game. Here, players could encounter several high-level critters, ranging from 50 to 70 on average and even getting up to level 100 in the case of Gyarados, which was unprecedented in the series. Among the wild Pokemon found in the Nature Preserve were several Altaria and Fraxure, as well as Basculin in the water, but the most prized find was a one-time shiny Haxorus encounter - and that's not too dissimilar from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk.

The Indigo Disk's Haxorus is Stellar-Type Instead of Shiny

In fact, the area resembling the Nature Preserve also hosts Altaria, Fraxure, Basculin, and more Pokemon, but more importantly, it is home to a Stellar-type wild Tera Haxorus. This fixed encounter only becomes available after beating the story of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk and catching Terapagos, which is the source of Stellar as a type in the first place, thus unlocking Stellar Shards as an item in the Terarium. However, the Haxorus in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk is not shiny - but it should have been.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Herba Mystica sandwiches opened up new and very effective ways to shiny hunt in the series, even more so than in the past. With the Haxorus line being found in Paldea as well, considering The Indigo Disk came over one year after Gen 9 games launched, Game Freak should have made the Nature Preserve-like Haxorus shiny. Since the Haxorus respawns in The Indigo Disk, this could have been limited to the first encounter with the Pokemon, and it would have been all the more effective as an easter egg.