Pokemon Sword & Shield Shiny Zeraora: How to get one in the Max Raid Battle event

(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Pokemon Sword & Shield are giving all players a chance to snag a free Shiny Zeraora if they pool their Max Raid Battle efforts.

The special Shiny version of the mythical Pokemon will be distributed to all participating players on one condition: at least one million trainers must defeat a giant, powered-up Zeraora in Sword & Shield's Max Raid Battles. The fearsome creature will start appearing in Max Raid Battles today as of 8 am PDT / 11 am EDT / 4 pm BST and will continue to show up until Sunday, June 28 at 4:59 pm PDT / 7:59 pm EDT / 10:59 pm BST.

Here's everything you need to do to make sure you get the Shiny Zeraora.

  1. Make sure you and 999,999 of your friends show up to beat Zeraora in Max Raid Battles during the specified time. Zeraora has a chance to show up in Max Raid Battles of 3 Stars or more - and 5 Star battles may even get the Shiny version (no, you can't just catch that one using a Pokeball).
  2. Move a Pokemon from Pokemon Sword & Shield to Home, or vice versa, any time between the start of the event and Monday, July 6 at 4:59 pm PDT / 7:59 pm EDT / 10:59 pm BST.
  3. If the million-victory condition is met, you will be able to claim your Shiny Zeraora from the Mystery Gifts menu of the Pokemon Home mobile app starting on June 29 at 5 pm PDT / 8 pm EDT / 11 pm BST.ist

As an extra bonus, participating players will also receive a piece of Armorite Ore for every 100,000 victories past the first million, up to a cap of 10 Armorite Ore pieces. You can use these in the new Isle of Armor DLC to teach your Pokemon moves in the dojo, so it's worth keeping up the fight even if your Shiny Zeraora victory is assured.

Nintendo also revealed New Pokemon Snap is headed to Switch and there's a tooth-brushing game starring Pikachu, so suddenly we're on the best Pokemon timeline.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.