How To Get Eternatus In Pokémon GO

One of the most gigantic Legendary Pokémon, Eternatus, has made its debut in Pokémon GO, but the requirements to get this strange beast are different than you might expect. Unlike other Legendary Pokémon, Eternatus does not appear naturally, instead demanding players meet a specific goal to unlock it. Even when caught, Eternatus doesn’t follow traditional rules, refusing power-ups unless you have a multitude of the right resources.

Eternatus and its Eternamax version are available through the Dark Skies event in Pokémon GO, which is set to last until August 23, 2025. Although Eternatus has been seen before, this event is the global debut of the Legendary for all players to capture. As part of the GO Pass seen during the event, Eternatus can be encountered easily if you follow the right steps.

How To Catch Eternatus In Pokémon Go

Complete Missions To Progress Through A Reward System

Unless you are attending the 2025 Pokémon World Championships, you can’t get Eternatus from a Power Spot or natural encounter in the world. Instead, you must reach Level 60 in the Go Pass: Max Finale reward system to earn an encounter with the Legendary beast.

Go Passes are free battle passes you can participate in by simply logging into Pokémon GO during an event. The Max Finale is a smaller GO Pass with fewer reward tiers, allowing you to progress through it at a much faster pace to receive various prizes. Eternatus is the ultimate goal of the GO Pass for the game’s largest event of the year, so it makes sense that it’ll take some time to reach.

You earn points for reaching different Levels of the GO Pass by completing missions, such as defeating certain Pokémon in Max Battles or pursuing Research tied to the Dark Skies event. Each level of the Max Finale GO Pass you reach comes with its own reward, but an Eternatus encounter is only seen at the very end.

There is a cap to how many GO Pass Levels you can rank up in a day. That being said, both August 23, 2025, and August 24, 2025, remove the Level cap, allowing you to progress as far as you want to reach Eternatus before the Dark Skies event finishes.

Getting to Level 60 unlocks a single Eternatus encounter, where you can capture the Pokémon for your roster, earning not just the creature, but the Candy associated with it. You can spend Stardust and Eternatus Candy to activate a unique Adventure Effect that buffs your Pokémon for other activities you might pursue.

Eternatus’ Adventure Effect causes each of your Pokémon’s Max Moves to be bolstered by one Level for 10 minutes, greatly improving their combat prowess for a time. This gives you a greater chance to take on other Max Battles in Pokémon GO present during Dark Skies, especially if you extend the Effect by spending more Candy and Stardust.

How To Level Up Eternatus In Pokémon Go

Find Ways To Acquire Many Instances Of The Right Resource

A red dragon-like creature with black spikes flies in the air surrounded by red particles. — A red dragon-like creature with black spikes flies in the air surrounded by red particles from Pokemon.

Leveling up Eternatus requires far more resources than powering up any other Pokémon in Pokémon GO, making it extremely hard to help this Legendary reach their full potential. To maximize Eternatus’ stats at Level 50, you need at least:

8,900 Eternatus Candy
8,900 Eternatus XL Candy

Once you get Eternatus from Level 60 in the GO Pass, you can start progressing through more ranks to earn the items you need. At Levels 61 and above in the GO Pass, you can start obtaining Eternatus Candy by finishing other missions just like you were already doing. According to the X post below by Leek Duck, large amounts of Candy are available in the Pass alongside another major encounter.

The Eternatus XL Candy can be gained by defeating Eternamax Eternatus, the strongest form of the Legendary Pokémon. This larger-than-life version of Eternatus only seems to be available on the last days of the Dark Skies event, so you only have a limited time to farm the XL Candy that you’ll need to power up the Pokémon up to Level 50.

You can use some items, such as Rare Candy, to bypass the Candy and XL Candy requirements to level up Eternatus. However, you’ll need a ton of items to bring Eternatus to its maximum potential.

Powering up a Pokémon in Pokémon GO costs both Candy and Stardust, so you’ll likely need a great quantity of Stardust to fully level up Eternatus. In total, you have to spend 520,000 Stardust to level up Eternatus completely, which you may not have right away. Try to defeat trainers, such as Team Rocket members, to earn Stardust quickly to collect what Eternatus requires.

Even though Eternatus is an incredibly demanding Pokémon to improve, the sheer power of the Legendary figure shouldn’t be ignored. The effort is worth it by a wide margin, easily giving you one of the most powerful Pokémon you can get in Pokémon GO when you level up Eternatus.