Corrupted Zones
Once you have 2 Gym Badges, one route or dungeon in Kanto becomes “corrupted” — marked with a banner announcement and carrying powerful bonuses and penalties.
Only one zone is active at a time. It rotates automatically every hour of play time, or burns out early if you win 15 battles inside it.
Effects While Inside a Corrupted Zone
| Effect | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Gear drop chance | 3× base rate |
| Shiny encounter rate | +3× multiplier (stacks with Lucky Charm relic) |
| Wild Pokémon levels | +3 to +5 levels above normal |
The zone is a high-risk, high-reward area. Pokémon are meaningfully harder, but drops and shinies are dramatically more common.
Rotation Rules
The active zone changes when either condition is met first:
| Trigger | Condition |
|---|---|
| Hourly auto-rotation | 1 hour of play time elapses |
| Battle burnout | 15 battles won inside the zone |
Battle burnout only counts wins while you are physically on the corrupted map. Battles elsewhere do not count down the burnout timer.
When the zone burns out or rotates, a non-blocking popup appears at the top of the screen for 3 seconds — no button press needed.
Badge-Gated Zone Pool
Zones unlock as you earn badges. The 28-zone pool:
| Zone | Short | Min Badges |
|---|---|---|
| Route 1 | R01 | 2 |
| Route 2 | R02 | 2 |
| Route 3 | R03 | 2 |
| Route 22 | R22 | 2 |
| Route 4 | R04 | 2 |
| Route 24 | R24 | 3 |
| Route 25 | R25 | 3 |
| Route 5 | R05 | 3 |
| Route 6 | R06 | 3 |
| Route 7 | R07 | 3 |
| Mt. Moon B1F | MtM | 3 |
| Route 8 | R08 | 4 |
| Route 9 | R09 | 4 |
| Route 10 | R10 | 4 |
| Route 11 | R11 | 4 |
| Rock Tunnel 1F | Tun | 5 |
| Route 12 | R12 | 5 |
| Route 13 | R13 | 5 |
| Route 14 | R14 | 5 |
| Route 15 | R15 | 5 |
| Route 16 | R16 | 6 |
| Route 17 | R17 | 6 |
| Route 18 | R18 | 6 |
| Route 19 | R19 | 7 |
| Route 20 | R20 | 7 |
| Route 23 | R23 | 7 |
| Seafoam Islands B1F | Sea | 7 |
| Victory Road 1F | VRd | 8 |
Selection is random from all eligible (unlocked, not currently active) zones.
EMBER Stats Panel
When a zone is active, the ZONE line appears at the bottom of the EMBER stats panel showing:
ZONE: R08 14
This shows the zone’s short name and how many in-zone battles remain before burnout.
The ZONE line is hidden when no zone is active (or before 2 badges).
Interaction with Other Systems
- Well Rested buff stacks with the 3× zone multiplier on drops
- Loot Filter still applies — filtered gear is auto-scrapped silently
- Lucky Drop (3% rarity bump) still applies to zone drops
- Pity counter resets on any drop, zone or otherwise