Twitch streamer Knekro had a one in 4,096 chance of obtaining a shiny fossil Pokémon when he booted up Sword and Shield yesterday. After roughly 40 minutes of restoring fossils and soft resetting his game, Knekro came across a shiny Dracovish.
Though Sword and Shield have various methods for improving the odds of finding a shiny creature, those methods aren’t applicable to obtaining a shiny fossil Pokémon through traditional means. That makes Knekro’s find considerably rare.
In the latest Pokémon generation, players are able to increase their odds of finding a shiny Pokémon by battling or capturing the same creature over and over. After increasing the number of battles to 50, players will have a one in 2,048 chance of finding a shiny version of said Pokémon. This drops down to one in 682 odds if a player has battled over 500 of the same Pokémon.
But restoring a fossil in Sword and Shield acts as a gift Pokémon in the sense that it wasn’t obtained through battle or catching. Because of this, restoring a fossil has no effect on the number of battles statistic and players are unable to take advantage of the shiny multiplier.
Another method of improving the odds of finding a shiny Pokémon is by attaining the Shiny Charm, but it’s unclear whether the charm applies to fossil Pokémon in Sword and Shield.
While this is possibly more time consuming than finding a shiny in the wild, adding a shiny fossil Pokémon to a Pokédex is a worthwhile accomplishment.
