PSA: Defeating a ‘footprints’ Pokemon in Crown Tundra just resets them
No need to panic and reset.
Pokemon Sword and Shield‘s latest DLC offering, The Crown Tundra, dropped over the weekend and it’s one gigantic hunt for legendary Pokemon. While it was previously announced that Galarian formes of the Legendary Birds–Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno–and the ancient golems would be on offer in this DLC, there’s an additional quest to locate another trio of legendary Pokemon.
Editor’s note: The rest of this post will detail the additional legendaries.
An encounter with Sonia in the town of Freezington will kickstart the quest. You’ll be tasked with finding three distinct sets of footprints across the tundra each corresponding to a different legendary creature. Each set has 50 total prints to find. Upon completing the research, Sonia will tell you where to look for the relevant monster, but doesn’t say much more.
In my case, I happened upon the legendary Virizion, a member of the Swords of Justice, unaware that it, too, would be roaming the overworld map. An unfortunate critical hit knocked the protective Pokemon out and I panicked: Did I just miss my shot at catching this one off?
It turns out, no, I didn’t. Defeating any of the Swords of Justice will trigger them to respawn later on in the same spot. A subsequent capture will denote how many times you battled the creature, adding insult to injury, but this is still a vast improvement from the catastrophic loss of monsters I was bracing for.
Of course, this applies to the other members of the group, too. Both Terrakion and Cobalion can be battled again should you accidentally defeat them, save or not.
The same can’t be said for the final member Keldeo. Triggering its appearance takes work–no accidental wandering into it like I did with the other swords–and involves being at a specific location (Ballimere Lake) with the other Swords in your party. Setting up camp and cooking curry will summon the aquatic horse and this is a one off battle. Save beforehand!
