Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s free Annihilape raid is live until August 20

A level 100 Annihilape with a Ghost Tera Type is sitting in 7-star Tera Raid Battles right now, and it’s carrying the Defiant Ability. You have until August 20 to deal with it.

The event went live August 14, 2026, and closes at 23:59 UTC on the 20th. It’s a joint Tera Raid Battle and Mass Outbreak drop built entirely around Annihilape and the two Pokémon it evolves from.

One catch, and it matters: you can run the raid as many times as you want, but the Ghost Tera Type Annihilape can only be caught once per save file. Plan accordingly.

What you actually get for winning

Beating it hands over Ghost Tera Shards, Exp. Candy, Protein and an Ability Patch, plus more on top of that. This one also carries the Mightiest Mark, the tag reserved for these headline raid bosses.

The Mass Outbreak half sends you to Kitakami hunting marked Mankey, Primeape and Annihilape. They’ve got an increased chance of showing up with the Angry Mark, so don’t wander in with a half-built team.

Before any of it works, download the latest Poké Portal News and install the latest update data. Skip that step and the event simply isn’t there.

The feature that saved the game’s reputation

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet landed in 2022 as the first entries in the ninth generation, and critics weren’t kind. The technical problems at launch dominated the conversation.

Players have since walked that back, largely because of how much post-game content has piled up over the past few years.

The other reason: the Terastal phenomenon. A Pokémon transforms into its exclusive “Tera Type,” swapping its normal Type for a new one, which rewrites its weaknesses, its strengths and its attack power.

There are 18 Tera Types. For fans who'd spent years complaining that recent Pokémon games kept running the same formula, that was the first genuinely new toy in a while.

Why the raids keep pulling people back

Nintendo has leaned on Terastal hard since launch, building event after event of post-game content around it.

Tera Raids are the centerpiece. Four players, one timer, one wild crystallized Pokémon with a specific Tera type standing between you and the loot.

The rewards are good enough that people are still coming back to a 2022 game to farm them.

Which is how a four-year-old Pokémon title ends up with a fresh 7-star boss on a six-day clock. The Ghost Tera Type Annihilape is out there until 23:59 UTC on August 20, and you get exactly one.