Being a Pokémon fan can get pricey, so when sales like Amazon's Prime Day come a-knockin', we always pay attention. And the good news is that 2026 has some pretty decent savings across Pokémon merch, games, booster packs, and more.

So whether you are an avid player of the best Pokémon games, are after some Kanto-inspired home decor, or want to expand your TCG collection, you've come to the right place. Below are the top 17 Pokémon Prime Day deals that we've spotted so far. We've made sure to try to include something for every type of Pokémon fan here, whether you're a gamer or just an enjoyer of cute critters. Unfortunately, there are no deals for Pokémon Pokopia or Scarlet and Violet, but I'm keeping my eye out in case any do drop. In the meantime, there is still plenty to hold you over before Pokémon Winds and Waves releases below.

Grab your Poké Balls and your wallets, fellow trainers, because these are the Prime Day deals that you won't want to miss.

For more savings, check out our guides of the best Prime Day gaming deals and the best Prime Day Nintendo Switch deals.

The latest Nintendo Direct has unveiled some exciting news and given us a sneak peek at what's in store for the Switch 2 – including a huge Pokemon Pokopia update as well as new paid DLC for the adorable 2026 banger.

That's right, cozy gamers – we're eating good this summer, as Nintendo has a bubbly underwater update in store for Pokopia... and it's coming in August. There's more in store than just that, however. Not only will we get to take our Dittos into the sea to terraform, build, and expand, but we're getting expansions, too.

An expansion pass is dropping today, in fact, and it'll include Bubbly Basin – an (unsurprisingly) underwater-themed DLC – in August, as well as "additional new features" sometime in late 2026 and an "additional new town" later down the line in 2027.

Bubbly Basin itself boasts a new town, with fresh outfits, furniture, and friends – emphasis on the "friends" bit, y'all. That means new Pokemon, and I'm so ready to see Ditto potentially transform into other cute 'mons.

In the trailer, we already see Mudkip and Popplio, for example, which are exciting enough as it is. Who else is coming? I'm not sure, but I can't wait to see.

Thankfully, there's not long left to wait now until the free watery update and the paid DLC start rolling out in August – so we'll see then. I've got my fingers crossed for all the mermaid vibes with outfits and furniture, so I'll be holding on with bated breath.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

The Pokemon Company has announced that the lifetime sales of all Pokemon games exceed 515 million, with 26 million sold in the last year.

Don't know if anyone out there knew this, but that Pokemon thing is pretty popular. The franchise as a whole is already firmly the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, and the games consistently rank near the top of the best-sellers list on every Nintendo platform they're on (or the top overall on Game Boy and Game Boy Advance). And despite some setbacks in the games' perception after the disastrous launch of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the series continues to sell well.

According to The Pokemon Company in its latest financial report, the "total shipments of all Pokémon-related software" have reached over 515 million units by the end of March 2026. And looking at the Wayback Machine, that marks a jump of 26 million from last year's reported number of 489 million units.

October saw the release of Pokemon Legends Z-A, the first Pokemon game on Switch 2. Of course, earlier this year, we also got Pokemon Pokopia, which became a phenomenon in its own right, and the Switch ports of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen led to another 4 million copies sold for that effort, placing those games in the top 10 best-selling Pokemon games. What's more impressive is that these numbers only cover up until the end of March 2026, meaning Pokopia has probably sold even more, and with Nintendo announcing it sold over 4 million copies by the end of its release month.

With Pokopia's continued popularity and the release of Gen 10 with Pokemon Winds and Waves in 2027, it feels very likely that next year's gain could be even higher.

"The biggest time save in nearly a decade of Pokemon speedrunning" has been discovered thanks to the new FireRed and LeafGreen Switch ports, and all it takes is the press of a button.

Nintendo has reportedly failed to secure another patent relating to monster-capturing mechanics, all while its lawsuit against Palworld developer PocketPair continues to rumble on.

Nearly two years ago, the Nintendo-owned Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement – a legal battle that is still ongoing.

It's been quite a while since it all began to fall into place when Nintendo took its first step in the legal battle back in September of 2024, with Pocketpair allegedly having breached three different patents with Palworld.

The developer has dropped updates that distance its survival game from Pokemon over the years, but the lawsuit is still in progress, and the situation as a whole is far from over.

After securing new patents that don't just affect creature collectors that resemble Pokemon, but various turn-based games, Nintendo is attempting to snag another – this time relating to touchscreen-based monster-catching mechanics… mechanics that are likely relevant to phone games or apps like the still-in-progress project from Pocketpair, Palworld Mobile.

According to Games Fray, though, Nintendo hasn't convinced the Japan Patent Office.

Put simply – because this entire debacle is anything but simple – the JPO examiner who reviewed Nintendo's new application (no. 2026-019762, for anyone wondering) didn't find any "inventive step" over "prior art."

They conclude that the rejected patent, itself a divisional of the prior one regarding monster-catching mechanics, is just a general rule set with nothing technologically original about it.

As for the patent, its only standout quality – at least, when compared to Nintendo's previous filings – is its mention of touchscreen usage, or "a game program executed by a computer of an information processing apparatus equipped with a touch panel." Now, this doesn't mean the company can't have another go at securing the patent.

As the Games Fray analysis reads, Nintendo had "already amended the claims in February and can try to amend them again."

It's all a bit of a mind-boggler if you ask me, but I'd argue that one thing is pretty clear: Nintendo isn't a company that easily backs down, and its ongoing push to secure new patents proves as much.

There's no telling what the future holds, but it's all a bit worrying – doubly so as we've not gotten any word on Palworld Mobile for quite some time. If anything did go forward via the JPO, I suppose the project (and others) could be affected.

Considering the past, it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Palworld already tweaked its original ball-throwing creature-capturing system to appease the lawsuit, for example, and it's not over yet.

All of this – coupled with the egregious Palworld and Pokemon clone that is Pickmos (originally titled "Pickmon") – makes the future particularly difficult to read. I'd wager we'll just need to keep our eyes on Nintendo for its next move.

As wait for Palworld 1.0 has fans in frenzy, lead says don't expect any "sudden announcement on Discord" as "it's a bit too big of a moment."

There are plenty of mind-boggling Pokemon and Palworld clones out there, both on mobile platforms and consoles alike – but the most viral one to date, Pickmos, might just be the most infamous yet… and it's back in the limelight after a quiet return to Steam.

In case you're out of the loop, Pickmos – originally titled "Pickmon" – made rounds online as it features, ahem, quite a few designs that might just be a tad bit too inspired by fan creations and, of course, Pokemon and Palworld themselves.

Folks joked that developer PocketGame (no, not Pocketpair) was "lawsuitmaxxing" with "straight up rip-offs" of iconic 'mons like Charizard. The game's name was soon changed, which the devs said was to "better align with our brand identity and lore."

After Pickmon became Pickmos, PocketGame promised revisions to ensure "a controversy-free experience" were underway, only for the creature collector to then disappear from Steam last month.

Publisher Networkgo explained the removal, saying it had "officially intervened in the development of Pickmos" and would be "supervising the PocketGame team from a player's perspective to ensure the game keeps getting better." It's… a lot.

Well, now, Pickmos is back on Steam. It's made an undeniably quiet return, however, with little update from PocketGame or Networkgo to describe what's happening behind the scenes or what prompted the decision to put Pickmos on Valve's storefront once more.

Interestingly, though, I see that a lot of the more controversial monster designs – like the Charizard-esque one and another that a Fakemon (fan-created Pokemon) artist alleged that the game "stole" – seem to have been wiped away.

There's no telling why this is the case until the devs or publisher speak up, but it's probably safe to say it has to do with the allegations of stolen art and the like. Heck, the new Steam page hardly features any screenshots or any trailer at all.

I'd say they're trying to be careful this time around, although it's hard to escape the general Pokemon and Palworld vibes the open-world game carries with it. I mean, just look at those monster-run factory lines.

Here's hoping that we get some sort of word from PocketGame and Networkgo on what is actually going on. For now, I'd suggest keeping an eye on the Steam listing for any updates or news posts. When they'll come, however, I'm not sure.

Palworld lead defends launch rival Enshrouded, says Pocketpair didn't eat the survival game's lunch and was fortunate to stand out in a "stacked" time for the genre

If you've spent any time playing Pokemon Champions since its launch, I'm confident you'll have encountered more than a few teams starring Incineroar, Sneasler, and Whimsicott. There's a reason for that – they're very good. However, in my first twelve hours with the game, I found far more success – and fun – as soon as I stopped trying to chase the meta, and embraced a supervillain identity to instead counter it head-on.

Pokemon Champions has broken down the barrier to entry to its competitive battling scene, making the series' Video Game Championships (VGC) more accessible than ever. By simplifying certain complex mechanics, now, anyone can quickly put together a powerful team with optimal stats. While its current state at launch is missing quite a lot of things – from the 6v6 single battle format to a whole load of items and Pokemon – it's not taken long for folks to start adapting to this new normal, and you can see precisely what that looks like by heading over to the game's Battle Data menu.

The very best

At the time of writing, the undisputed king of the 2v2 double battles format is Incineroar, running the Intimidate ability to lower its opponents' Attack stat, Fake Out to make a foe flinch (unable to move), Parting Shot to deliver a debuff before escaping back into the party, and Flare Blitz and Darkest Lariat to deal heavy damage. Combine that with a Whimsicott, which can instantly use Tailwind to make its whole team twice as fast, and throw in something like the absurdly strong Sneasler or Mega Charizard Y, the latter of which can set up the harsh sunlight weather condition to power up its Fire-type moves, and you've got yourself a powerful team that's rather frustrating to go up against, to put it lightly.

Obviously, things do vary a bit – Garchomp and Sinistcha are also super popular choices at the moment, and I've come across plenty of teams using rain-centric weather teams, too. But the Incineroar, Whimsicott, Charizard, and Sneasler combo is one that even I couldn't resist the temptation of as I first got myself more reacquainted with competitive battling, as admittedly, I'd not taken part in the VGC format regularly in years. And, wouldn't you believe it, it works, but where's the fun in pitting near identical teams against each other, trying to pull off the same strategy?

In a moment of clarity, tired of being amongst the masses constantly switching an Incineroar in and out of battle for the Intimidate and Fake Outs, I decided to leave the meta behind me, and in the hours that followed, began honing a squad purpose-built to shut down the very strategy I'd been using. Not only that, I wanted to make something so packed with relatively unpopular 'mons that opponents would be less likely to know how to deal with them. Well, at long last, I'm pleased to introduce you to my Slow Boys – a team of my favorite li'l freaks who've now caused so many forfeits that I've lost count, and frankly, I don't blame anyone who does.

The brains of the operation is a big, bulky Cofagrigus – a Ghost-type immune to being hit with Fake Out, and defensive enough that I've yet to see him be taken out in one turn. And one turn is all he needs, because he has a key job at the start of every battle: set up Trick Room.

Trick Room makes it so the speeds of the Pokemon on the field are essentially reversed, with the fastest going last and the slowest going first, so any Tailwind set up by his opponents in the first turn immediately works against them, and my own Pokemon – engineered to be as slow as they can possibly be – are suddenly able to outspeed everything against them. This is the essence of the Slow Boys, but – excuse the pun – Trick Room isn't the only trick up Cofagrigus' sleeve.

Once Trick Room is active and he's the fastest 'mon in the room, Cofagrigus has a number of options, all as nefarious as the last. He can either hit something with a Burn-inducing Will-O-Wisp to slowly deplete their health (and, more importantly, cut the power of any Physical-attacker in half for the rest of the match), or sacrifice some health to set up a Substitute and protect himself from damage until it's broken, keeping him alive on the field as he slowly recovers all his health with the Leftovers he's holding. While he can land Shadow Ball attacks on his foes, too, his main job is to stick around as long as possible and hopefully set up yet another Trick Room when the first one runs out – assuming the rest of the team hasn't already done enough damage to seal our opponent's fate.

After all, Cofagrigus would be nothing without his teammates. His partner in crime at the start of a battle is usually my Hisuian Goodra – lovingly named Oopy Goopy – who can use Protect on the first turn if a Fake Out is headed his way, or start causing chaos by using Knock Off to remove his opponents' held items, often ruining certain strategies in the process. With the Steel-type Heavy Slam, he can swiftly dispatch Fairy-types like Whimsicott, and Draco Meteor is a powerful Dragon-type move that can put a massive dent in – or completely knock out – many other foes.

The rest of the team composition varies depending on what I can see my opponent is bringing with them, but rounding out the offensive side of the Slow Boys are Drampa and Tyranitar (an admittedly more popular option for a team). Both of them are able to get rid of weather conditions like harsh sun and rain thanks to their respective Cloud Nine and Sandstream abilities, instantly making Pokemon like Mega Charizard Y less threatening. What's more, Tyranitar is also Charizard's public enemy number one thanks to his quadruple-effective Rock-type moves, while Drampa's Hyper Voice can attack both opposing Pokemon for some strong spread damage, or come in with a Thunderbolt to get rid of rain-setting Pokemon like Pelipper.

My Galarian Slowbro is a regular teammate, with the ability to set up Calm Mind to buff his Special Attack and Special Defense, heal with Slack Off, and unleash brutal Shell Side Arm and Psyshock attacks (the latter being brutal on Sneasler). He has the power to sweep a team if given the opportunity, with the Trick Room making him the speediest Slowbro alive.

Meanwhile, the most unusual (and easily the most situational) addition to the lineup is a shiny Appletun I was determined to use solely because I was thrilled to get him from Champions' gacha system. He doesn't slot into every quad quite as easily as the others, but when the circumstances are right, can exploit his Ripen ability to get massive heals from a single Sitrus Berry… which he can endlessly replenish thanks to his Recycle move, further supplementing the constant health sapping he pulls off with Leech Seed, forming an adorable apple pie wall.

My villain era

I'll be the first to admit that this could be an infuriating team to face if you're not prepared for it. In fact, so many people have hit forfeit against it that I almost feel bad. Almost. After all, my Slow Boys aren't completely unstoppable – there's many ways they can be (and have been) stopped in their tracks, and the alternative is submitting to an equally frustrating meta. Even so, each time a team full of popular 'mons concedes to my scrappy go-getters, I feel like I'm slipping further and further towards becoming some kind of Pokemon supervillain, with each win spurring me on to keep playing just one more match.

It should be noted that Trick Room teams are far from new, and even in Champions, I've occasionally seen other folks trying to pull off similar strategies using Pokemon like Farigaraf, so it's not like I've concocted something totally unheard of here. What's clear, though, is that by following the meta so closely right now, a lot of folks simply aren't prepared to deal with something that's a bit more out of the norm.

To put it into perspective, the official Battle Data at the time of writing shows that Cofagrigus – the undisputable MVP of my team – is only the 123rd most used 'mon in double battles right now, putting it far down the list of currently available Pokemon. Less experienced players won't be as familiar with it as a result, and even the veterans out there might not necessarily have the tools on their team to deal with it as effectively as possible given that it's not what most players are running.

It sounds cheesy to say it, but perhaps more importantly, it's not all about winning. Over my 12 hours of playing, assembling my wacky team of weirdos and fine-tuning their builds through trial and error has been the most fun I've had with Champions, and I'm excited to see how I'll be able to further improve things the more I play.

Truthfully, the Slow Boys aren't the faithful minions of a supervillain – I actually hope that folks running into something a bit different like this in their ranked battles could inspire them to try something new, too. After all, battles are about having fun with different strategies – weird, clever, or totally unexpected – and the more of those we see, the more interesting Champions' competitive landscape will be going forward.

Prefer Pokemon adventures to battling? Check out our best Pokemon games ranking for more reasons to explore the world of Pokemon!

Who would've thought a free-to-play online PvP game based on a beloved IP like Pokemon Champions could be so controversial? First, it was the bugs and performance issues, then it was all of those missing features, and then there's that alleged bug that traps Pokemon in limbo between Pokemon Home and Champions. Now, players are locked in heated discussion about whether a new change to the game's ruleset is a good thing or not.

As reported by Automaton, Pokemon Champions battles have a timer on them, and if it runs out, the battle ends in a draw, whereas before the winner would be decided based on how many active Pokemon they still have. If that number was the same, the player with the most HP would win. Now, no matter what, time out matches end in draws.

However, it's crucial to point out that there are two timers: a personal one and an overall timer, which effectively prevents the losing player from simply idling for the rest of the game. They can idle during their turn and then lose that turn, but they can't idle through the full match, which seems like a solid safeguard against cheating to avoid losing rank.

Still, the ruleset change is proving controversial. In several discussions happening across Pokemon VGC communities, no one can agree whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Genuinely, in most video game controversies I've covered, of which there have been many, there's usually an uneven split in opinion, but here it seems pretty 50-50.

"This only makes those slow paced teams even more annoying. This one torkoal kept putting my whole team to sleep, and I don't even get points for it," argues thezekroman.

On the other hand, some folks are "so glad this was added," like Individual_Paper80. "Had a legit 5 minute slogfest draw yesterday with a burned corviknight without flying type attacks and roost vs my sinistcha."

Other, less scrupulous players freely admit to stalling matches to avoid losses. "Me.. a Hoodra staller likes this very much," says Electrical_Active180.

As a non-competitive Pokemon player, I don't have a horse in this race, but it does seem sensical to award timeout wins to the player who, you know, did a better job in the battle. Even though the two separate timers prevent the sort of exploits that would otherwise be blatantly unfair, handing out draws when one player is clearly ahead still seems plainly wrong.

Pokemon Champions patches out strategies competitive players have been using for years, but hey, at least Freeze has finally been nerfed

Pokemon Champions' lousy launch is getting slightly less lousy thanks to a new bug fix that stops our beloved pocket monsters from being forever stuck in limbo on their way to or from Pokemon Home, the digital bank that lets you move 'mons between games.

The free-to-play PvP battler launched yesterday to largely mixed reviews aimed at Pokemon Champions' visuals, a lack of popular features, and the removal of competitive strategies that have been in use for years. But the most urgent problem came in the form of a bug that would trap Pokemon in transit between Champions and Home.

The Pokemon Company today detailed a list of known issues plaguing the game, alongside one single fix now preventing the communication error that many a trainer got when trying to send Pokemon over to the battler. Other in-progress bug fixes include a faulty description for Leech Seed, an error with how genders are displayed, the order of Mega Evolutions occurring, and more.

"We will continue to investigate any other issues," the developer writes in machine translated quotes, apologizing to players for any "inconvenience."

Competitive VGC player Justin Carris alerted everyone to the problem of trapped 'mons yesterday, explaining that the issue persisted across both the Switch and mobile versions of Pokemon Home.

Carris reported that an error message would halt the transfer of Pokemon traveling into Champions, but a separate error message would then also claim that those 'mons were still in the PvP game and were unable to be withdrawn, essentially meaning they were stuck in the middle. Removing those error message should mean those affected 'mon now have a route back from limbo.

Over 5 months since Pokemon Legends: Z-A's release, Home compatibility finally lets you offload your shiny-stuffed boxes ahead of Pokemon Champions

It's been over three weeks since Nintendo dropped its last big Pokemon Pokopia update, fixing early-game softlocking and more, but various issues have persisted in the cozy life sim since – some of which developers aim to now tackle in a brand-new patch.

If you haven't spotted the news yet, Pokemon Pokopia version 1.0.3 is out now – and as per the official update details from Nintendo, it's a chunky one compared to previous patches.

It addresses softlocking, from construction projects to more serious halts in story progression, over-rumbly vibrating controllers, and, perhaps most notably, bugs that would cost us our Pokemon. Because, you know… they're kind of important.

As Nintendo words the problem. "In some cases, Pokémon whose habitats have disappeared cannot be found even when searching for them using the 'Search' function in the Pokédex."

It's no small bug, really – as someone who spent ages collecting as many Pokemon as I could by going back and forth between the habitat Pokedex and my islands, I don't like the idea of losing my 'mon via an accidental pick-up or punch.

Pokémon Pokopia Version 1.0.3 is now available from r/Pokopia

I'm not the only one who feels this relieved, either. Over on Reddit, one fellow fan jokes, "Excellent, now removing the front door of a habitat accidentally won't send the inhabitants to the shadow realm." Indeed, it will not. A separate post sees folks dubbing the update's fix a "massive solve" – and I certainly agree.

Version 1.0.3 targets other lost 'mon, too, as "certain actions" could cause "seasonal Pokémon to disappear from the town and Cloud Island."

And, for anyone wondering how to update – which you must if you want to continue using the game's online features – simply navigate over to your Switch 2 home screen and select Pokopia without opening it. Then, press the + button or – button on your Joy-Con. The current version number will pop up, and you just need to select "Software Update" and "Over the Internet." You'll then be all set to explore version 1.0.3.

I'm personally hoping Nintendo continues its work on what might just be one of this year's biggest new games yet – and perhaps even addresses fans' requested features, like a better GameShare and multiplayer mode… I know my fingers are crossed, anyway.

Pokemon Pokopia speedruns are already a thing, and they somehow don't use the cozy life sim's fastest ability.

Pokemon Champions has launched to mixed reviews and all sorts of controversy from reports of performance issues to the removal of longheld competitive strategies, but arguably the most urgent issue is that it seems to be trapping some players' Pokemon "in limbo."

Competitive Pokemon VGC player Justin Carris (thanks, Kotaku) flagged the issue on Twitter, warning Pokemon Champions players of "a massive bug with transferring pokemon between Pokemon HOME & Champions."

Carris reports that he was trying to transfer Pokemon from the cloud-based Pokemon Home bank over to the new PvP game Pokemon Champions when he received an error message. The message persisted across the Nintendo Switch and mobile versions of Pokemon Home, returning Carris to the home screen and indicating that the transfer hadn't gone through. The thing is, the transfer seems to have been halted halfway through, as Carris was met with a message in Pokemon Home saying he can't trade Pokemon that are "visiting Pokemon Champions."

"They are basically trapped in limbo," he says.

Carris adds that he got a separate error code when trying to move the Pokemon he tried transferring to Champions back to Scarlet and Violet. That error code doesn't appear when trying to move around Pokemon that weren't involved in the failed Champions transfer, reports Carris.

"I spent hours and hours cultivating the pokemon I would be sending to my copy of champions so that I could start grinding the game, recording footage for videos, and getting a grasp of the meta for my coaching & consulting businesses," he says in a follow-up tweet. "This is an unacceptable setback."

Carris isn't alone in experiencing this issue, but it's unclear exactly how widespread it is. It's also unclear if there's a reliable workaround at the moment. One user suggested Carris uninstall and reinstall Pokemon Home, but Carris says he's done that to no avail. He also confirms none of his Pokemon are "genned," meaning modified using third-party software.

One Japanese-speaking player dealing with the same error received a response from Nintendo support advising them to clear the cache in Pokemon Home alongside several other steps, but the the player says none of that has worked.

I've reached out to The Pokemon Company for clarification, but in the meantime it's best to proceed with caution when transferring from Pokemon Home over to Champions, especially when dealing with your most treasured 'mons.

I made a competitively viable team in a matter of minutes in Pokemon Champions, and I'm confident this could open the door to high-level battles for newcomers galore

Pokemon Champions makes some surprising changes to staple mechanics and strategies fans have been using for years, and it's safe to say that they're going to take some getting used to.

As a PvP battle hub that'll soon be the purpose-built place for the official Pokemon Video Game Championships (VGC) and its tournaments, you'd largely expect battle mechanics to remain in line with what veteran players have been used to up to this point. Not so, apparently, as certain status effects have been significantly nerfed.

Paralysis (first introduced in Red and Green) may have faced some changes over the years, but one thing has remained consistent – any Paralyzed Pokemon has a 25% chance of being immobilized each turn. Champions nerfs this, bringing it down to a 12.5% chance, so if you Paralyze a foe, don't expect to get so lucky when it comes to stopping their attacks.

What's more, the Sleep status condition has been nerfed so that it now lasts for a maximum of three turns (with a 33% chance of waking up on the second), while the Freeze status similarly has a three-turn cap (with a 25% chance of thawing out each turn before that). That last one is bound to be a relief for anyone who's previously found themselves trapped for a seemingly endless number of turns, it's got to be said.

That's not all, though, as other changes may have a direct impact on certain PvP strategies. Even before Champions released, 2016 Pokemon World Champion and VGC superstar Wolfe 'Wolfey' Glick noted from an early-access preview session that the maximum number of Power Points (PP) for the move Protect had been halved, from 16 to just eight.

As Wolfey explains, Protect is commonly used in the VGC's standard double battle format, which sees you send out two Pokemon at a time. Not only can you use it to shield one Pokemon from damage while your other one takes out a threat on the field, but you can use the move to stall out incoming attacks like Sucker Punch and Thunderclap, which only land if you've used an attacking move. Notably, Sucker Punch and Thunderclap also each have a maximum of eight PP, so now that Protect has been made the same, players won't be able to use it as freely without worrying about running out of PP.

And, funnily enough, another anti-Sucker Punch and Thunderclap strategy has now been found dead since the game's launch earlier today. As highlighted on Twitter by @PokeMaineEvent, the move Fake Out now can't be selected at all unless it's the user's first turn in battle (or they just got switched back in). Those are the only circumstances the move actually lands – a trade-off for it being a high-priority attack that guarantees a flinch on its opponent – but previously, you could select it anyway and 'waste' a turn.

Except, it wasn't always a waste – it could similarly be used to bait out Sucker Punch and Thunderclap attacks from your foes. That's no longer an option, as Champions outright stops you from being able to throw away your turn using Fake Out if you're not using it as originally intended. At least you'll no longer be able to press it by mistake, I guess?

That Fake Out change also now means that if a Pokemon uses the move Encore on an opponent that just used Fake Out, instead of locking it into using a move that doesn't do anything, the Encored 'mon will instead use Struggle – letting it attack, but also forcing it to take recoil damage in the process (thanks for the spot, @shairaba).

Obviously, it's debatable if adjustments like this are necessarily a bad thing. Speaking in a group interview attended by GamesRadar+ ahead of Champions' launch, producer Masaaki Hoshino noted that the devs were "going to [pay] very close attention to how players are playing it, what the meta is like," and potentially "make balance adjustments accordingly." So, not only could all these things be changed further going forward, but we can probably expect more alterations to keep on coming, too.

The bigger question is what impact regular changes like that could have on the competitive scene, when large alterations have historically coincided with new generations of games, giving us years to get used to them. That's something we'll only be able to get a proper gauge of over time, but for now, between adjustments like these and the limitations Champions currently places on key aspects of battles (with many held items missing from the game at the time of writing, alongside hundreds of Pokemon), this might be the biggest shakeup VGC has had in years. Considering official tournaments are very soon going to be held in the game instead of the more familiar Scarlet and Violet, I can't imagine all players are thrilled.

If you're playing the new battle-focused game, be sure to check out our guide on how to link Pokemon Champions with Pokemon Home.

Pokemon Champions is finally here, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a winner as far as players are concerned, with complaints about its visuals and limitations on the competitive battles it's made for.

Champions is a free-to-play, battle-focused game somewhat akin to the likes of Pokemon Stadium, serving as a PvP battle hub that allows you to use Pokemon you've trained in previous games, or brand new ones recruited via a gacha-like system in-game. It's also soon set to be the title used for official Video Game Championships (VGC) tournaments, including the massive World Championships, so it's a big deal, with a lot of pressure from fans hoping for either as good of a VGC experience as they can get in, say, Scarlet and Violet, or better.

Well, a few hours after Champions' launch, and it doesn't appear to have succeeded there yet. As Joe Merrick, owner of the unofficial Pokemon news site Serebii, puts it: "Going from the perfection of Pokopia to this...whiplash."

He's particularly disappointed about the lack of available items for Pokemon to use – per his own records on Serebii, there are currently only 30 items that aren't Mega Stones and Berries, and that list is missing popular staples like the Life Orb, Choice Band, Choice Specs, and Assault Vest. Needless to say, this is going to have a huge impact on players whose favorite teams relied on items that they no longer have access to.

"I've got to say, the lack of item options is going to hurt this game in the short term and I think very much damage VGC in general when VGC shifts over next month," Merrick writes. "What on earth were they thinking?"

And that's on top of a limited available pool of Pokemon available. Currently, there's reportedly a total of 185 to use – not even close to the series' full list of over 1,000 creatures. With that said, producer Masaaki Hoshino previously told me that "we want to include as many Pokemon as possible" in Champions, but that the current plan was to have "a limited selection available, but shifting over time" in order to keep the game from getting too complicated, especially going into the future when more and more Pokemon are created. So, we knew some sort of limit would be in place here, but the actual number seems to have come as a surprise to some.

Another major blow for many is the lack of 6v6 single battles. "No 6v6 single battles in Pokemon Champions makes me so sad," writes Pokemon content creator RaidAway+, while pokeaimMD writes: "How can you advertise this game as play the way you want to and not let me do 6v6 private lobbies."

What's more, there are also complaints about the way Champions looks and runs, even on Switch 2. "Why the fuck does it look like this. Why is it running at 30 fps," one writes, while another post reads: "WHY IS CHAMPIONS IN 30 FPS ARE WE SERIOUS BRO I HAVE A SWITCH 2 ITS 2026 HELLO?"

So, it's hardly a great start so far. Something that's well worth keeping in mind as a potential positive, though, is the fact that being a live service game means Champions is going to be continually updated, and therefore the devs will be able to (in theory) action feedback like this. Producer Hoshino also told me that the plan is to "keep Pokemon Champions going far into the future – basically forever, as long as the Pokemon series is continuing," so it's in the devs' interest to make players happy – we'll just have to see if they're able to turn things around from this shaky launch.

Pokemon Pokopia player decides Animal Crossing: New Horizons-style banishment isn't enough for their least favorite 'mons, straight-up jails them instead: "They are (mostly) comfortable."

Pokemon Pokopia players have already figured out how to speedrun the cozy life sim, with the time to hit credits sitting at around three hours.

YouTube creator PulseEffects has shared a video detailing how its done, and while the point of the game obviously isn't to hit credits as fast as you can, it's certainly interesting to see how such a laid back game can be minmaxxed like this.

I won't go into all the details here for the sake of spoilers (that's what the video is for, if you wanna see 'em), but an early example includes not creating the biome for Slowpoke where I imagine almost everyone did (down near Magikarp), and instead building it near Hitmonchan, and thus making the act of escorting the slow Pokemon to the Pokemon Center way less tedious.

The most shocking aspect of the entire run is that the best ability in the game – Graveller's Rollout, which allows you to speed around as a ball and destroy terrain along the way – is completely skipped. A few powerups are skipped because most of them are "kinda unnecessary" or "take way too long to obtain to be worth it in a speedrun," with Rollout being an example of the latter.

If there's anything you would associate Pokemon Pokopia with, it's going fast and making sure you get to the ending, of course. Sure there's a Minecraft-inspired cozy game in there that has you rebuild nice communities with the power of Pokemon and friendship, but why would you do that when you can rush to the end as was obviously intended? At the very least, some have taken that approach, as the speedruns for Pokemon Pokopia are now down to three hours, which seems inconceivable to me who has put however many hours in and still not finished either of the second biomes or met the Snorlax or Pikachu variants.

Pokemon Pokopia sends monthly Switch 2 sales flying by 154% in the UK.

A new update to Pokemon Home has, at long last, added support for Pokemon Legends: Z-A. Five months after the new RPG launched, you can finally upload your 'mons to the storage service, and you'll even get some Alpha starters as a reward for your troubles.

Pokemon Home version 4.0.0 launched earlier today, offering support for both Legends: Z-A and the forthcoming Pokemon Champions. The mobile version of Home, specifically, has also added Challenges and stickers, and updated the Pokedex for each of the newly supported games.

As noted by Pokemon fansite Serebii, once you upload a Legends: Z-A Pokemon into Home, you'll be able to select a Mystery Gift which will grant you an Alpha Chikorita, Alpha Tepig, and Alpha Totodile. Those are the three starters for Legends Z-A, and fits with Home's previous giveaways of starters from recently released games. And, unfortunately, it also still requires you to use the mobile version of the Home app.

But hey, the real bonus is finally getting Legends: Z-A support in Home. I understand to an extent why Nintendo and The Pokemon Company hold off on letting you use Home with new games for a few months, since it forces players to focus on the new games for a bit before integrating their catches into their broader Pokemon collections.

Yet it's still always a bummer having to wait for the new games to become part of the broader Pokemon ecosystem. I say that as someone purely interested in Pokedex completion, but the shiny hunting sickos have had it even harder. Shiny hunting in Pokemon Legends: Z-A is easier than ever, so hunters' in-game boxes have been stuffed to the gills – as evidenced by all those piles of Pancham and Skiddo from the Zone 3 exploit back at launch. Well, at least those Pokemon have a bit more room to grow now.

Here are all the upcoming Switch 2 games you need to know about.

A patent on summoning creatures to battle, which was granted to Nintendo and The Pokemon Company in 2025, has now been revoked. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has declared that the patent is too obvious to stand, but importantly, this is a non-final decision. Nintendo still has the opportunity to fight back.

Notably, this is not one of the patents that Nintendo cited when it took Palworld developer Pocketpair to court back in 2024 – a legal case that is still ongoing. Those patents largely cover features like creature capturing and riding.

This patent, number 12,403,397, covers summoning a creature to do battle for you, and was granted to Nintendo and the Pokemon Company in the US in September 2025. This patent in particular proved pretty controversial, with even The Pokemon Company's former chief legal officer suspecting it would likely be unenforceable.

In November 2025, the USPTO made a rare move in calling for patent 12,403,397 reexamined. That brings us to today's news, which is that after the reexamination, the patent has been revoked. As reported by legal analyst Florian Mueller for games fray "the rejection is non-final," and "Nintendo has two months to respond." The company could also choose to ask for an extension.

The patent was revoked because its claims were too "obvious." Four instances of prior art were cited to back up that claim, including a 2002 patent from Konami, a 2019 patent from Bandai Namco, and two 2020 patents from Nintendo itself.

Notably, these prior art examples do not include any examination into real-world games – just as no actual games were looked at before the patent was granted in the first place. "By not looking at real-world games," Mueller argues, "the USPTO is making this somewhat complicated. For 18 of the 26 patent claims, they have to combine two different prior art references to argue that the claimed inventions are obvious, and for the remaining 8 patent claims they even have to combine three to get there."

As Mueller explains, "that creates an opportunity for Nintendo to argue that a person having ordinary skill in the art (i.e., a game developer in this case) would not necessarily combine those different prior art references when looking for answers." Yet "what ups the ante for Nintendo is that for each of the 26 claims the USPTO has two alternative theories, any single one of which would be enough to take the patent down."

If any one of those 26 patent claims survived, "Nintendo could sue someone over it." The more claims that stand, the more ammunition Nintendo has to sue for infringement, and so the company's lawyers "will try to salvage as many of them as possible."

Japanese patent office casts doubt on 2 Nintendo Pokemon-catching patents in the Palworld lawsuit, saying Monster Hunter, Ark, and Pocketpair's own Craftopia all did it before.

As a daily Animal Crossing player, I've been enviously watching the Pokemon Pokopia community build absolutely incredible things with the game's comparatively advanced toolset, but this latest creation has me questioning whether it's wise to give players that much freedom.

We all have neighbors we don't like, and thankfully, in Animal Crossing you have relatively harmless ways of expressing that in the form of pitfall traps you can place around your island and the tried-and-true bug net, which you can smack villagers with until they start sulking like little babies. Sure, some people take it to the extreme by trapping villagers in custom-built enclosures, but there's only so much you can do to make them truly miserable, and that's probably for the best.

One Pokemon Pokopia player posted a video of the ghastly facility they built to literally torture their least-favorite 'mons, and I fear technology has gone too far.

"They are (mostly) comfortable.." says Reddit user jayhanparks, who gives a genuinely unsettling tour of the jail in an accompanying video. In it, you can see innocent Pokemon like Mr. Mime, Hitmonlee, Timburr, and Machamp trapped inside cramped, dimly lit jailcells. Clearly distressed, the Pokemon complain about the low level of light as jayhanparks turns a blind eye to their own cruelty.

They are (mostly) comfortable.. from r/Pokopia

Joking aside, this is a highly impressive build and that makes me even more eager to cheat on Animal Crossing with Pokopia. I've always wanted the ability to create fully enclosed buildings so that my Animal Crossing restaurants and supermarkets don't go out of business when it rains. Although, as this Redditor has proven, deeper customization tools aren't always good or even ethical when you're dealing with cozy gamers. It's always the quiet ones.

I've spent 20 hours in Pokemon Pokopia obsessing over its mysterious world and what it hides beneath the surface

Pokemon games are often criticized for their poor technical states these days, but the lack of refinement goes back to the series' heyday. When remaking the OG Game Boy titles for the GBA, the devs at Game Freak had a rough time revisiting their previous work in part because the programming was so bad.

That's according to a 2004 issue of Nintendo Dream magazine, which included an interview with director Junichi Masuda, lead planner Koji Nishino, lead programmer Tetsuya Watanabe, and graphics lead Takao Uno. That interview has recently been translated as part of a new DidYouKnowGaming video, offering some rare insight into the development of FireRed and LeafGreen.

The original Game Boy titles were less than a decade old when the GBA remakes came around, but the devs still found it difficult to revisit them for their research, complaining that "there's no color, the screen is too small, and the programming sucks."

The Japanese versions of those original games are even buggier than the localized versions, and Watanabe jokes that the team "hadn't gotten any better at programming since then," which is why they "desperately needed" Nintendo's assistance to implement the then-new GBA Wireless Adapter. The late Satoru Iwata, who had recently become president of Nintendo, loaned a handful of programmers to Game Freak "for a few months" to help implement support for the accessory.

In this same interview, the devs also revealed that many of the changes added for FireRed and LeafGreen were built to help attract more girls and elderly players to the Pokemon series. In fact, development got underway with the slogan: "Pokemon that even 60-year-olds can play." I'm not sure how many sexagenarians got into the games back then, but the continued stature of these remakes among fans speaks for itself.

Here are our definitive rankings of the best Pokemon games.

The Nintendo Switch 2 sold 154% more UK units in March 2026 compared to February, thanks to the release of Pokemon Pokopia.

Pokemon Pokopia is that game this year. Not only has it once again overtaken Resident Evil Requiem on Metacritic as the best game of 2026, and been rated as the best Pokemon title of all time, but the game was so popular that people were reporting shortages of the game at retailers. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company confirmed that the game had sold 2.2 million copies in its first four days, and with the lack of an Animal Crossing: New Horizons sequel, cozy game fans are clearly flocking to it, which in turn has given a boost to the Switch 2 itself.

The Game Business co-founder Christopher Dring reports that (per Nielsen IQ) "Nintendo Switch 2 UK sales jumped 154% in March month-on-month following the release of Pokemon Pokopia." Nintendo accounts for over 50% of all consoles sold in the UK so far this year. Dring notes that "One caveat. March was a five-week month, whereas February was a four-week month," but regardless, it's an impressive bump.

With this excellent month, Dring notes that "Nintendo accounts for over 50% of all consoles sold in the UK so far this year," and with the combination of the PS5 price rise, Xbox not doing much, and the leaked Nintendo lineup for 2026 sounding kind of wild, I wouldn't be shocked if this continued throughout the year.

Pokemon Pokopia players turn to "broken" Minecraft tactics to make gathering one of the game's rarest materials a breeze.

Pokemon Pokopia is impressing cozy game stans all over the globe with its Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Minecraft vibes – but some of the rare materials take away from the whole "cozy" aspect, as they aren't exactly easy to grind and gather.

Or, well, they used to not be. If you're in need of Pokemetal or Rare Pokemetal (I'm looking at you, Cloud Island and 3D printer frequenters), simply look to this handy new method from content creator Austin John Plays on YouTube.

First, head over to a Dream Island (ideally the Dragonite doll one, as it harbors the most of the metal). Then, go to the beach right by spawn. From there, face directly downward, use your Rock Smash ability, and dig six blocks under.

This reminds me of the old Minecraft diamond-mining trick, where you have to dig down to a certain depth and search however many blocks beneath the surface. Just another play on ye olde Minecraft mechanics in Pokopia, I suppose (and I'm so here for it).

Once you're six blocks down, use Rollout and go straight until you hit Pokemetal. Turn right after that, and do it all again. As Austin puts it, "We're not doing strip mining. We're excavating."

And, "After you clear off enough of an area, you're just going to do the next column over and over" – it's a cycle that just keeps on giving… no potato hamburger steaks required. It's a tried and true method already, too, judging by the comments.

"This method was perfection," as one reads. "I mined 1,200 Pokemetal in about 90 minutes and 150 Rare!" Another person exclaims, "This has been a huge help!" Others wish they'd learned about the method earlier.

"Man, I wish I had seen this before I spent the entire day clearing out a couple Dream Islands for Pokemetal," one such fan writes. I can see why. That's a lot of Pokemetal to go around, and even more opportunity to craft late-game items or 3D print your favorite objects from Cloud Islands.

I know I'll be putting some to good use myself later on for fruit-shaped lamps and whatnot. When I'm done with the Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream demo, that is…

Minecraft griefing returns in Pokemon Pokopia as player ruins "public island for co-op building" with 0 guilt: "Very sad to see the efforts of around 100 people go to waste"

Pokemon Champions will be ditching IVs to make the series' competitive scene more approachable, something producer Masaaki Hoshino had to discuss with one of the series' original battle designers.

Starting later this year, Pokemon Champions will the the official game of the Pokemon Video Game Championships, with the free-to-play title set to be the go-to game for competitive Pokemon going forward. But at the same time, Pokemon Champions aims to make the competitive battles a bit more approachable for players, and one way is by removing one of the series' long-standing stats, IVs – which are somewhat hidden modifiers that decide how a Pokemon's stats will grow as they level up.

In a roundtable interview attended by GameSpot, Hoshino said that the removal of IVs took a "heated discussion with [Shigeki] Morimoto," one of Pokemon's original battle designers.

Hoshino further explains Champions' approach to accessibility in a separate roundtable interview attended by GamesRadar+. "From the very beginning, we didn't want to go and change that core battle system," he says. "We thought that was very important, especially to the current players who enjoy the battle system. So we wanted to keep the same core battle system."

However, he also notes that not everyone "really got into the PvP part – playing against other players – and with this product, our hope is to expand that accessibility, to make it something that anyone can jump in and enjoy." He adds that "up until now, in order to participate in those battles at a high level, you needed to do a lot of work, for example, all this different training that takes quite a bit of time, and that can feel like a bit of a hurdle for certain players." In theory, then, Champions should make that easier than ever before.

I made a competitively viable team in a matter of minutes in Pokemon Champions, and I'm confident this could open the door to high-level battles for newcomers galore.

Pokemon Champions is planned to be updated "far into the future," even when there could be as many as "10,000 Pokemon," according to game producer Masaaki Hoshino.

Speaking via interpreter in a group interview attended by GamesRadar+, Hoshino says he doesn't have "any specific concrete plans" he can share when I ask if the idea is for all Pokemon to be available in Champions, be it at launch or over time, thanks to future updates. However, he adds, "But of course, we want to include as many Pokemon as possible in the game. That's our goal."

With that said, it might not be as straightforward as just making the entire Pokedex available to use at the same time. Acknowledging that the team wants to make Champions "a game that can be easily enjoyed by a wide audience," Hoshino explains that "our current plan is to have these different blocks," AKA the the Regulation Sets that The Pokemon Company already uses to lay out the rules of what Pokemon can be used in different seasons of the competitive Video Game Championships (VGC) scene.

"Our plan right now is to have that kind of change over time, so the meta game or the Pokemon that are available at any given time to be used may be different as time goes on," he adds.

It sounds like part of this is about future-proofing that level of simplicity going forward, so that players don't feel increasingly overwhelmed as the different generations of Pokemon come and go, bringing with them all-new creatures to fight with.

"We're planning to keep Pokemon Champions going far into the future – basically forever, as long as the Pokemon series is continuing," Hoshino explains. "And who knows? Far in the future, we'll have 2,000, 3,000, maybe 10,000 Pokemon.

"If we had all of those available to be played, I think it would just become such a complicated situation. So I think the idea that we have right now is only a limited selection available, but shifting over time."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hoshino notes that Champions is a game that's "going to continue to evolve," supporting "the new Pokemon that come out," so we definitely can't expect the PvP game to remain stagnant. Clearly, its Switch launch on April 8 is just the beginning.

A Pokemon Pokopia player built a working calculator and the game's not even 3 weeks old: "The countdown to a playable version of Doom begins now."

If there's one big goal for Pokemon Champions, it's accessibility. The upcoming free-to-play PvP game is set to simplify Pokemon's high-level turn-based battling more than ever before, lowering the barrier to entry and inviting more players to try their hand at the Video Game Championships (VGC), something producer Masaaki Hoshino knows hasn't been easy in the past.

Speaking via interpreter during a group interview attended by GamesRadar+, Hoshino says that despite Pokemon battles being a key part of the series for 30 years now, "I really wanted to make these Pokemon battles, this element of the Pokemon series, something that sticks around forever, that we have going into the future." He acknowledges that not everyone has "really got into the PvP part – playing against other players – and with this product, our hope is to expand that accessibility, to make it something that anyone can jump in and enjoy."

If it ain't broke

It's not about changing Game Freak's winning formula, mind you. Although The Pokemon Company delved into real-time combat for the first time in a mainline title last year with Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Pokemon Champions is maintaining the traditional turn-based format that fans know and love, which has "been unchanged since they first developed it at Game Freak back in 1996." In fact, Hoshino notes that Shigeki Morimoto, who was "one of the original battle designers," is "working on this game as well" – the team has been "working heavily" with him to help with the balance of the game.

He explains: "From the very beginning, we didn't want to go and change that core battle system. We thought that was very important, especially to the current players who enjoy the battle system. So we wanted to keep the same core battle system."

However, he knows that system – once you start looking to compete at a higher level – hasn't been the most straightforward. "At the same time, up until now, in order to participate in those battles at a high level, you needed to do a lot of work, for example, all this different training that takes quite a bit of time, and that can feel like a bit of a hurdle for certain players," Hoshino admits, clearly referring to elements like Effort Value (EV) training. "So with this game, we've made that element much easier. It's a lot easier for anyone to get into that higher-level gameplay."

Aside from simplifying the complexities of Pokemon's high-level battling, Champions is also notably set to become the official VGC hub going forward, with competitors in tournaments like the World Championships to use the game instead of the mainline titles like Scarlet and Violet. This is a big deal, as this is the first time in series history that competitive battling has been given its own separate space to operate – some have already speculated that this could even open the door to the devs being more experimental with the other games, since the VGC can now be managed and balanced independently from them.

"Turning it into its own thing like you mentioned, really taking it from the main series games that we've used in the Championships up until now was definitely one of the goals we wanted to do," Hoshino tells me.

"Part of that is that we've done other games, like, for example, the Legends series," Hoshino says, pointing to Legends Z-A and Arceus. "In Legends: Z-A, there's Mega Evolved Pokemon that you can't play elsewhere, and other Pokemon you can only play in the Arceus game. And I think that a lot of players out there would love to use those Pokemon in the traditional turn-based games, so, part of our goal with this is to really be able to take all those elements and allow players to enjoy that traditional turn-based battling going forward into the future."

Hoshino is a self-proclaimed fan of Pokemon Stadium and its sequel, noting that "I really enjoyed those games as a player, from the old days, and of course took that experience – my time playing those games – and definitely used it as a reference when making this game." With that said, Pokemon Champions is already set to be very different to the likes of Stadium for two simple reasons – the fact that it's been updated with modern Pokemon and gimmick mechanics that didn't exist back then, like Mega Evolution and Terastalization, but also because it can be continually upgraded to include even more content going forward.

The producer notes that "we're taking elements from all of these past Pokemon games, the different battle elements, and putting them all into this one exciting new product," and there's perhaps no better example of that than the aforementioned gimmicks. Previously, these sorts of mechanics have largely been tied to specific generations of games, never to return in the future (Mega Evolution being an outlier), but it appears that they're all present and accounted for here, as Hoshino notes that Champions' Omni Ring item "lets you access all of the different features" like "Z-Moves, Mega Evolution, Dynamax, all of these different things." As for whether we're going to see all of those gimmicks be able to play out at the same time going forward, though, even the devs aren't sure.

"This is something we're still kind of working on and experimenting with, so we don't have a clear answer at the moment," Hoshino says, asked if different gimmicks can be combined. "It's really going to come down to, once we do combine these things in one environment, how does that actually play out, and can we create a balanced environment?"

The producer acknowledges that, at the very least, we know Z-Moves and Mega Evolution can work in tandem – they already did in Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon – but as for the other combinations, "we'll just have to experiment and see how we can make it work in a balanced way."

And, again, the live-service nature of Pokemon Champions means it's not going to remain stagnant – Hoshino and the team are looking well into the future with the title. "It's not just going to be a game we put out and, you know, it doesn't change. It's going to continue to evolve," he reiterates. "We're going to be able to support the new Pokemon that come out. So it's going to be a product that continues to evolve, but it is going to be the single title that everyone plays for the Championships."

Speaking of new Pokemon, given how the National Pokedex has changed in the main series games – with the great "Dexit" first seen in Sword and Shield making it impossible to catch every single 'mon in existence in the more modern games – I'm curious how Champions plans to handle this when it comes to its own available lineup of creatures. "I don't have any specific concrete plans that I can share right now," Hoshino tells me, asked if the goal is to make every Pokemon available in Champions – be it at launch or over time. "But of course, we want to include as many Pokemon as possible in the game. That's our goal.

"And at the same time, though, I think you were talking about accessibility and making it a game that can be easily enjoyed by a wide audience. Our current plan is to have these different blocks," he continues, referring to the Regulation Sets that determine the rules of what Pokemon can be used at different points during the various competitive seasons. "Our plan right now is to have that kind of change over time, so the meta game or the Pokemon that are available at any given time to be used may be different as time goes on."

Hoshino adds that this methodology might also prevent the game from getting too complicated as the years pass and more and more Pokemon are created, too: "If we had all of those available to be played, I think it would just become such a complicated situation. So I think the idea that we have right now is only a limited selection available, but shifting over time."

Looking ahead to launch, game balance is obviously top of mind for the team, as Hoshino says that "we're going to [pay] very close attention to how players are playing it, what the meta is like, and, you know, which Pokemon are strong, and maybe make balance adjustments accordingly for the next season – the next Regulation Set." That's seemingly going to be extra important considering that "there are some changes that are going to be specific to Pokemon Champions from the main series games."

And again, Champions is planned to continue long after its Switch launch on April 8. In fact, Hoshino already muses about a future where the total number of Pokemon is 10 times larger than it already is.

"We're planning to keep Pokemon Champions going far into the future – basically forever, as long as the Pokemon series is continuing," he says. "And who knows? Far in the future we'll have 2,000, 3,000, maybe 10,000 Pokemon."

For now, be sure to check out the ranking of the best Pokemon games.

I am undefeated in Pokemon Champions. Let me just bask in the glory of that sentence for a moment before we get into this. The soon-to-be dedicated hub for Pokemon's traditional turn-based PvP has a lot riding on it, and heading into my hands-on preview session, I was determined to start my new competitive journey off strong. So, would I say that my 2-0 victory went to my head? Of course not. Well, maybe a little. But, more importantly, I left the session excited about what this new battle-focused game means for the future of Pokemon's competitive landscape.

Pokemon's Video Game Championships (VGC) scene is one of the most interesting parts of the entire franchise, but it's easily one of the most complicated, too. I was around 12 years old the first time I attempted to become a serious Wi-Fi battler on Pokemon Black and White, but little did I know what an undertaking it'd be to even begin. It wasn't just about building a well-rounded team like in the single-player RPG campaigns – suddenly, I was dealing with all sorts of new mechanics, like Effort Values (EVs) to boost stats, and Individual Values (IVs) that could fundamentally decide whether a Pokemon was even capable of meeting their maximum potential in the first place.

I admit, I was overwhelmed, and it didn't take long for me to give up. While Pokemon has made some attempts to simplify these mechanics in more recent years (like with the Bottle Cap items to improve IVs without having to spend hours breeding a powerful 'mon), Pokemon Champions is set to slam that barrier to entry more fiercely than ever before with a Giga Impact. During my hour-long hands-on, I quickly realize that this isn't just another Pokemon Stadium-like battling game, this is about swinging the doors of competitive battling wide open for more fans than ever before – even those who don't own any of the other games.

I choose you

After going through a small handful of tutorials explaining the basics of battling, I'm thrown straight into the action of recruiting my winning team. Although Champions will let you use the Pokemon you've already caught and trained in previous games thanks to Pokemon Home support (meaning that for series veterans like me, it essentially serves as a hub for the turn-based battles we all know and love), you can also team up with new 'mons found within the game itself, which is how I find myself buddying up with a Charizard, Greninja, Gallade, and Excadrill.

There's one catch catch to this – obtaining new battle pals this way essentially operates on a gacha system. A less restrictive one than you might see in some other games, mind you, but reliant on random chance nonetheless. Spending in-game currency – specifically, Victory Points (VP) or other items like coupons and tickets – you enter the Roster Ranch, which generates a "lineup" of Pokemon from you to choose from. You can only pick one Pokemon per lineup, so choose wisely – the randomness means you won't necessarily see the same creatures return again on your next attempt, although it can happen. I'd already recruited my Charizard when I was presented with the option to get a second one, for example.

After that, it's straight over to the training menu to bring each one of my team members up to their full potential. While I didn't see IVs figure at all on this page, everything else you'd ever need to know or change is right here. I pore over each of my Pokemon's neatly summarized stats, which are listed next to their natures (and what stats those natures are affecting), abilities, and moves, in addition to 'Stat Points,' which serve as a simplified version of the EVs system.

Rather than having 510 EVs to play with like we have done in games past – and a maximum of 255 EVs per individual stat – in Pokemon Champions, you instead have 66 Stat Points, with a cap of 31 per stat. Changing these is as easy as selecting the stats you're interested in and adjusting the gauge – after giving it a powerful Modest nature, I immediately max out the Special Attack of my Charizard, knowing full well I'm about to slap a Charizardite Y stone on it to make it an absolute monster when Mega Evolved.

Elsewhere, I ensure my Greninja is running its hidden ability, Protean, to give each of its moves a same-type attack bonus, while Excadrill is set up to be a speedy, hard-hitting powerhouse with Sand Rush. My full team is battle-ready within minutes, with the process made effortless thanks to the easy-to-understand menus. Alas, and you may be noticing a theme at this point, there is once again a catch – this is all reliant on you having enough in-game currency to spend, with each change you make racking up more and more VP.

As for the battles themselves, well, they're exactly what you'd expect from the turn-based games, although an immediate difference I already wish was a thing in the main series titles is the addition of a visible percentage on your opponents' health bars. Now, you know exactly how much damage you're dealing with each attack, allowing you to be more precise with your damage calculations even if you're not a veteran who comes to any battle prepared with the knowledge of exactly how much your moves will do against certain Pokemon.

Admittedly, I don't do much precise damage calculation myself when my Mega Charizard Y is out on the field, as it has so much success blasting everything in sight with its Drought-boosted Fire-type attacks that I don't need to worry too much about the exact numbers. After my first win, I go back to the Roster Ranch to befriend a Goodra and Venusaur, but even on the second round, none of my other Pokemon are able to dethrone my 'Zard as the MVP of the session.

Poke-wrapped

Even after a short amount of time spent with the game, it's clear that Pokemon Champions has a lot of potential. During the preview, myself and the other media and content creators fought using Mega Evolution as the battle gimmick, but it's already been revealed that others like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Terastalization will be present. On top of that, being a free-to-play game that makes it easier than ever to build a competitive team in a matter of minutes (something that, in years past, could have taken hours and hours on end), I'm eager to see how the VGC scene will evolve as more new competitors decide to give Pokemon PvP a proper shot.

However, I already know that my full-time enjoyment of Pokemon Champions is going to depend on how aggressive its monetization is – something that's impossible for me to measure at this point. During my hands-on session, I had unlimited resources at my disposal to recruit as many Pokemon as I wanted, and change all their moves, stats, and abilities without even having to think about how much currency I was spending. It's already been revealed that we'll be able to earn VP just by engaging in battles, so there's no concern about these features being locked behind a paywall, but the speed at which we'll be able to rack up the currency is another matter. Will I still feel as free to experiment with new builds and make fresh teams if I risk running low, or worse still, out?

That's something I'll only know when the game launches next month, but I'll admit I'm tempering my enthusiasm until then. After all, a battle pass and paid membership has been confirmed, and it's not clear at this stage the full extent of what they'll include. With future official tournaments like this summer's World Championships also set to take place in Champions, separating the competitive scene away from the main series titles like Scarlet and Violet for the first time ever, VGC's fate will be tied – seemingly forevermore – to a free-to-play game with monetization elements that I still don't fully grasp. Admittedly, that does make me somewhat nervous.

Overall, though, I choose to be optimistic. Even if folks end up preferring to train their teams in other games where they don't have to worry about spending VP, Champions still opens the door to learning about competitive play in a less complex way, in addition to being software that almost anyone can use thanks to its eventual mobile launch. While I still have some questions, I know that this is going to have a big impact on VGC. For now, I'm hopeful that it'll be in a good way.

Be sure to check out our ranking of the best Pokemon games.

Pokemon Champions now has a release date, with a free Switch 2 update also coming on the same day to enhance the visuals for anyone playing on Nintendo's latest console.

We already knew that Champions was set to launch sometime in April, but now we know exactly when that is – April 8, at least on Nintendo Switch. The mobile version's launch date remains unknown, so presumably that's still on track to arrive at some point this year, as was stated during last month's Pokemon Presents.

Pokemon Champions is essentially the modern-day answer to Pokemon Stadium, serving as a hub for PvP turn-based battles. Thanks to Pokemon Home compatibility, you'll be able to use Pokemon that you've already trained in the previous games, but you'll also be able to recruit new 'mons within the game itself. So, in theory, even someone who's never played a mainline Pokemon game will be able to get into the competitive scene.

That's especially relevant given that Pokemon Champions is set to be the new hub for the series' Video Game Championships (VGC). Up until now, tournaments have taken place in the latest generation mainline games – right now, that's Scarlet and Violet. However, in August, the Pokemon World Championships will use Champions, instead, after its first use at the Indianapolis Regional Championships in late May. Here's hoping the April launch gives competitors enough time to get used to the new setup before then.

As a free-to-play game, however, it remains to be seen how prevalent in-game purchases and microtransactions will be in Pokemon Champions. Today's news has given us a glimpse into that already, detailing a "Starter Pack bundle" that will be available at launch, which includes "in-game benefits like added Pokemon storage space, an extra battle song, and more." A separate press release notes that both a Premium Battle Pass and Membership will be available to buy, too, although no further details of what these will include were revealed.

Pokemon Pokopia once again overtakes Resident Evil Requiem on Metacritic as the best game of 2026, with a score of 90 that's going to be hard to beat.

Pokemon Pokopia is back on top of Metacritic's ranking of the best games of the year, once again overtaking Resident Evil Requiem as clearly not even hot unc Leon Kennedy is able to keep the cozy life sim down.

With 101 critic reviews logged at the time of writing, as highlighted on ResetEra, Pokopia has regained the average critic score of 90, which it previously briefly saw when the first few reviews started dropping. As is to be expected, this fluctuated somewhat as more scores started coming in, but it remained the highest-rated Pokemon game of all time, and now, almost three weeks on from the game's launch, it seems quite unlikely to shift any more than it has.

Its main competition has been Capcom's latest horror romp, Resident Evil Requiem, which is still following close behind on the rankings with an average critic score of 89. It's a very similar story over on OpenCritic, although on that review aggregator, Pokopia is tied for the top spot with indie hidden object game Lost and Found Co. – it's worth noting that one only has 12 reviews in comparison to the 78 listed for Pokopia, though.

A score of 90 for Pokopia also sees it match Animal Crossing: New Horizons on both Metacritic and OpenCritic – fitting given the comparisons between the two, even if the Pokemon spin-off's building elements make for a rather different experience overall.

Obviously, we're still quite early in the year, so even if Pokopia has been able to fight off Resident Evil Requiem, it remains to be seen if it can hold its own against the slew of other games launching this year. We've got GTA 6, Marvel's Wolverine, and Fable set to release within 2026, and that's just to name a few. Pokopia will definitely have its work cut out for it, but that lethally moreish combination of Pokemon and the cozy life sim genre is going to take some beating.

A Pokemon Pokopia player built a working calculator and the game's not even 3 weeks old: "The countdown to a playable version of Doom begins now,"

The ever-cozy Pokemon Pokopia offers a very wholesome blend of Animal Crossing: New Horizons vibes and Minecraft mechanics – but players are discovering that, sadly, not all in the community are as wholesome as the game they're enjoying.

Picture this: it's the early 2010s, you're just getting home from school, and you're preparing to hop on your favorite Minecraft server for some admittedly not-so-great builds. What do you see when you get in, though?

Your house-in-progress is now a house-in-shambles, thanks to griefers. We all remember them, and, unfortunately, they're still around. They're now rearing their heads in Pokopia, in fact, much to players' dismay.

As one disappointed fan reports in a recent online post, "We opened a public island for co-op building, and I suppose expectedly someone came in and wrecked it. Very sad to see the efforts of around 100 people go to waste, but we at least recorded footage prior."

Attached are images of the island they cite before and after the damage – and, yeah, it's pretty crushing to see. Thankfully, it sounds as though folks will rebuild it, at least.

"If you wish to help salvage," the poster writes, attaching access codes for the island. Replies show disheartened fellow fans, with one comment reading, "I thought we left griefers in 2012." Another person chimes in, "They really need to implement island backups or something."

A good few players offer their help in rebuilding everything, too, which is nice, but wow, does this whole situation bring back my worst Minecraft memories.

I'm just glad that something like this even exists in the first place, I suppose – especially when I consider all the calls to Nintendo for a better GameShare and multiplayer mode.

A public island like the one covered here could really be special… and, evidently, is.

New Pokemon Pokopia update addresses early-game softlocking and more, because we all deserve to meet Mosslax ASAP

There's a new Pokemon Pokopia update upon us, squashing bugs and addressing issues with Pokedex entries, certain quests, and softlocks.

Nintendo unveils the new patch, which brings the game to version 1.0.2, in an announcement online alongside some handy instructions on how players can update Pokopia.

The first two changes come to early quests, "Rock smash your way to treasure!" and "To Snorlax!" They basically just make progression easier, as certain block placement can make it "difficult to understand how to progress the request" pre-patch.

There's a plethora of other tweaks for quests, too, including ones that tidy up some softlocks. For instance, during the "Help make a home!" request, Squirtle can get stuck in a tree and become impossible to chat with... you know, preventing progression. Now, this shouldn't happen anymore.

There's also a bit of a pre-update bug in "Find the Pokemon Center!" in Bleak Beach, where progress is halted if players break the bridge's cracked blocks early.

Other changes Nintendo lists are similar, mostly affecting quests and situations that could prevent a player from progressing. It's one of those areas that can be tricky to nail, after all, as Pokopia does allow for full creativity, but it also has a more streamlined story to follow for ability unlocking and such.

While I (thankfully) haven't encountered any issues myself, a quick browse on Reddit shows others certainly have.

For anyone wondering how to update – and you do need to if you want to continue using the game's online features – simply navigate to your Switch 2 home screen and select Pokopia without opening it. Then, press the + button or – button on your Joy-Con. The current version number will pop up, and you just need to select "Software Update" and "Over the Internet."

Et voilà! You're all set to enjoy 1.0.2.

Here's hoping Nintendo continues rolling out the updates – and perhaps even addresses fans' requested features, like a better GameShare and multiplayer mode.

"Welcome back ACNH treasure islands": Pokemon Pokopia fan creates Cloud Island you can use to get some of the cozy game's rarest goodies, and it's reminding us all of our Animal Crossing days

It's no secret that Pokemon Pokopia is a hit with Animal Crossing: New Horizons fans (hi, it's me), thanks to its cozy gameplay loop and relaxing island vibes – but now, thanks to players, it's even more like the adorable Nintendo gem that stole our hearts in 2020.

If you haven't heard of "treasure islands" in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, they aren't as active as they were during the peak COVID era, but they're still around.

Put simply, fans would (and still do) set up their islands – islands that are, admittedly, often modded or on hacked consoles – with all sorts of rare items and goodies, and open them up to visitors so that folks could more easily secure their most sought-after objects.

Unsurprisingly, it hasn't taken Pokopia players very long to do the same in the new Pokemon spin-off with Cloud Islands – islands that carry unique codes fellow fans can use to come and visit. Once there, they can snap pictures and then use Pokemetal back home to clone their favorite items.

One online user shares their treasure-laden Cloud Island in an online post, and boy, is it packed. From patterns to lamps, it's got just about everything on it.

The code, for anyone interested, is 6DXLPD6F. As the poster says, all you need are the Mysterious Goggles (which you can purchase at any PC), and you're all set to travel there. They show off some of the contents, too – and outline a plan to add various rare furniture items and even more in the future.

The island already boasts every flower, hedge, and fruit, as well as the Eeveelution foods. Finally, Sylveon will be mine…

Perhaps most amusingly, the community is already comparing it to Animal Crossing's own treasure islands. My favorite comment, for example, reads, "Welcome back ACNH treasure islands."

Others thank the creator for their time, writing, "Not all heroes wear capes." Indeed. It's apparently not the only Pokopia Cloud Island with loads of items to 3D print back home, either – and I can't say I'm surprised.

It was only a matter of time before fans unlocked everything and made it available to all via Cloud Islands, honestly. Now I'm just waiting for mystery bag events akin to those I'd attend in New Horizons… although I'm not sure how they'd work in Pokopia.

Pokopia players say its water physics are "just as bad" as they are in Minecraft, prompting all sorts of liquid chaos: "How do I even begin to fix this"

It's been a fun few days for Pokemon Pokopia players, as the cozy new gem continues to impress with its Animal Crossing: New Horizons vibes and Minecraft mechanics – but it's not all smooth sailing when it comes to terraforming islands, apparently.

Pokopia players are already blowing fellow fans' minds with their builds, with underground lavafalls, entire little themed villages, and more – but there's one big aspect of building that remains a bit of a mystery to many: water.

Sure, you unlock new ways to interact and engage with good ol' H2O as you progress in the story, but the physics of it all escape plenty of otherwise creative builders (hi, it's me, I have no idea what I'm doing with water).

In fact, it's such a pesky system at times that folks are comparing it to Minecraft's own, which, if you know, you know.

"WATER PHYSICS IS JUST AS BAD IN POKOPIA AS MINECRAFT," as one player exclaims in an online post. "I REPEAT, DO NOT INHALE SURROUNDING WATER TO FILL A ONE-TILE WATERFALL YOU ACCIDENTALLY MADE FROM BREAKING AN UNDERWATER BLOCK."

Attached is a screenshot showing the damage – and, yeah, it's a bit of a waterfall-shaped mess all right. In the comments, the poster questions, "HOW DO I EVEN BEGIN TO FIX THIS?"

Thankfully, fans offer various solutions, from careful height-specific water block placements to actual fixes found in Minecraft. "If it's like Minecraft, place a layer of blocks below the water and fill in and then remove that layer of blocks," one comment reads.

The original poster did, in fact, end up remedying their mistake, replying with an update and new image of much calmer-looking waters. "Ok I fixed it visually and I'll have to accept the fact that a sand bar is gonna live here and I'm haunted by the sound of an invisible waterfall forever," it reads.

Not a perfect fix by any means, but just like in Minecraft, I'd take it. They are not alone in their water-y suffering, however.

Several threads can be found online showcasing similar scenarios, with one person on Reddit begging, "Please help me fix the water." Alongside their post is a picture of their river, gaps and all.

Another screenshot on the forums shows an island that has arguably all but drowned, with a caption pleading, "I think I overdid it using water spit to hydrate this area… how do I fix it?" In other words, we're all struggling with Pokopia's water physics out here.

I'm certainly no exception, and I spent the entire weekend teleporting from island to island to build and progress. Water physics remain an enigma to me in both Minecraft and Pokopia – and, evidently, they do to many a player.

"It can't even be Pokemon Minecraft, you can't even craft": Pokopia leaves co-op fans disappointed, saying GameShare between Switch 2 and its predecessor "might as well not exist"

Pokemon Go players are helping delivery robots reach consumers' doors, as Niantic Spatial says it's using images captured on the app to improve location pinpointing in partnership with companies like Coco Robotics.

Although Pokemon Go makes it clear in-game that it's collecting AR mapping data, with a notification prompting players to acknowledge that they'll help add to this pool for any given location, AI company Niantic Spatial – a spinout from developer and publisher Niantic – is apparently tapping into this collection now to… help delivery robots?

Speaking with MIT Technology Review, CTO Brian McClendon reveals as much.

Niantic Spatial's latest model is one that can reportedly pinpoint somebody's location on a map to the dot – we're talking a few centimeters – using images of landmarks, like buildings, in the vicinity.

The company wants to use this technology to help robots, like those deployed by Coco Robotics, navigate and deliver across Europe and the United States with greater precision, where GPS might be less reliable.

"Everybody thought that AR was the future, that AR glasses were coming, and then robots became the audience," as McClendon states. "The urban canyon is the worst place in the world for GPS. If you look at that blue dot on your phone, you'll often see it drift 50 meters, which puts you on a different block going a different direction on the wrong side of the street." That’s where Niantic Spatial's new tech would help.

How does it work, though? Well, for the last few years, the AI company has been using the aforementioned data from Pokemon Go to build an accurate visual positioning system.

As Niantic Spatial CEO John Hanke says, "It turns out that getting Pikachu to realistically run around and getting Coco's robot to safely and accurately move through the world is actually the same problem." Who would've thought?

Niantic Spatial has trained this system on some 30 billion images snapped by players in urban environments – the sorts of places that McClendon calls "the worst" for GPS.

"We had a million-plus locations around the world where we can locate you precisely," he explains. "We know where you're standing within several centimeters of accuracy and, most importantly, where you're looking." Sounds… ominous, but, hey, it works.

The company has even bigger aspirations, too – if the map-making improvements keep on rolling, it'll capture everything. "We're not there yet, but we want to be there," McClendon concludes. "I'm very focused on trying to re-create the real world."

That's one big task. It's certainly a unique way to go about things, too, with Charizard and Pikachu captures helping train super-advanced AI mapping tech.

It's important to note that this news has sparked fears of Niantic using players who were "unknowingly," as one viral online post puts it, feeding AI tech with personal data, but this doesn't seem to be accurate at all. As mentioned earlier, Pokemon Go does make it clear that images are banked as mapping data, and that's a fact that has been public information for quite some time now.

The delivery robot side of things, however, is new.

Are you still playing yourself? Be sure to browse through our roundup of the most up-to-date Pokemon Go codes for a little treat in-game.

Pokemon Pokopia has seemingly confirmed that a NPC from Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen is dead… or has a sore tummy. Equally bad fates.

Possible spoilers for Pokemon Pokopia ahead, and I guess Pokemon gen 1 too?

Something isn't right in Pokemon Pokopia. The whole plot (at least in the early hours of the game where I currently reside) revolves around how no one can find the humans at all, and the only remnant of them is one Ditto who remembers what their trainer looked like. But as you explore the somewhat apocalyptic lands, you find notes scattered about from humans from before whatever happened in this world took place.

There's chatter of space travel, an incoming catastrophic event, and notes from or about specific people like the NPC builder in Vermillion City or a Team Rocket Grunt talking about their squad. But one you can find, on what appears to be the wreckage of the S.S. Anne, seemingly tells you the fate of one specific patron of the vessel.

The note is titled Sailor Dylan's diary, and has the NPC originally found in FireRed and LeafGreen – maybe Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow too (most trainer NPCs weren't named in the original versions) – describing a really rough day on the ship. Dylan says, "The sea is really rough today. The ship keeps swaying back and forth," closing out his memo saying "Ugh… I don't feel so good… I might not be able to write much mo–" abruptly cutting off.

Some – like Twitter user Tales_of_Taylor – have taken this as the last moments of Sailor Dylan's life, assuming the ship to have crashed as he wrote this note, hence it being found in the wreckage. "This game is fucking devastating," another replies.

Although, another reading of this is mentioned in the responses, suggesting "he frew up" from seasickness, which is also a possibility.

However, given that Pokopia takes place seemingly ages after an apocalyptic event, Sailor Dylan is probably dead anyway… alongside every other NPC from those games.

I thought nothing could replace Animal Crossing for my nightly cozy vibes, but Pokopia's delightfully unhinged dialogue is very tempting: "It's a pretty nice butt, don't you think? So shiny!"

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have announced that Pokemon Pokopia sold 2.2 million copies in its first four days, with the Switch 2 exclusive already ranking among the top-selling spin-offs for the series.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the best-selling games of all time, and even if it's not the best-selling Switch game ever, it's one of the five most successful Nintendo games of all time. Meanwhile, Pokemon is one of, if not the most successful media franchise ever, so merging the two is a bit of a no-brainer, and throw a bit of the best-selling game of all-time, Minecraft, in there, and you've got a recipe for success. And turns out that's exactly what happened, as reports of physical copies of the game being extremely hard to find are plentiful.

Nintendo released a statement today – the one-week anniversary of Pokopia's release – on its website announcing that within the first four days of its release, Pokopia has sold 2.2 million copies on Nintendo Switch 2, with one million of those being from Japan alone. Based on the previous info released by Nintendo, that places it as the console's fourth highest-selling game to date, but that number will surely have jumped up by the time Nintendo releases its next batch of financial results, and I wouldn't be shocked if it ends up ahead of Donkey Kong Bananza as the console's second-best-selling game.

Serebii owner Joe Merrick put this number into perspective, showing that Pokopia is already one of the most successful Pokemon spin-offs ever, beating out the lifetime sales of the likes of Pokemon XD, Pokken Tournament, and a number of the Mystery Dungeon titles. Although, given this hot start, it feels almost guaranteed that it'll end up at the top of the pile, as it only needs to sell just over 3.65 million more to beat Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team.

Pokopia leaves co-op fans disappointed, saying GameShare between Switch 2 and its predecessor "might as well not exist."

Cozy Pokemon spin-off Pokopia is impressing fans with its Animal Crossing: New Horizons vibes and Minecraft mechanics, but players hoping to enjoy the new Nintendo gem in co-op – particularly via GameShare – are expressing disappointment with multiplayer.

If there's one thing folks were looking forward to – aside from the whole island-building bit, of course – in Pokopia, it's the four-player multiplayer and GameShare functionality between the Switch 2 and its predecessor that trailers showed last year.

People wanted to play with pals, partners, and you name it… and they wanted a better co-op experience after Animal Crossing's more limited take on multiplayer. Now that Pokopia is finally here, however, folks are sadly discovering that neither co-op nor GameShare is what it seemed cracked up to be in 2025.

As one fan reports on Reddit, "PSA: The GameShare is awful and might as well not exist." They explain their thoughts, writing, "The Switch 1 player is only able to wander around and do nothing."

PSA The gameshare is awful and might as well not exist from r/Pokopia

The poster continues, explaining that the person on the first Switch basically can't do much of anything, from changing their appearance to crafting items. "I'm so disgusted. I only got this game to play with my girlfriend, and you can't do anything. 0/10, stay far away if you want this game for co-op. There is nothing here."

They're not alone in feeling this way, either. "GameShare is SOOOO BADDD," exclaims another player in a separate post. Not only can you not play the story mode together, but you "can't interact with ANY Pokemon, can only play in certain areas, can't craft items, can't open the Pokedex, and can't customize your character," as the disappointed fan outlines.

"You CANNOT OPEN CHESTS? It can't even be Pokemon Minecraft, you can't even craft."

GameShare is SOOOO BADDD from r/Pokopia

According to the poster, "98% of the mechanics are unavailable to GameShare players." In GameShare, you can only do a few things, apparently: pick up certain objects, put blocks down, and use the skills the host has unlocked.

It's understandably upsetting – heck, I was excited to play alongside friends myself. As another online thread puts it, "GameShare is disappointing." It's a "sour note on an otherwise perfect game."

News of the letdown that is Pokopia co-op, specifically via GameShare, is spreading far and wide. One person amusingly points out that they're "just a glorified pack mule" as the second player – and, yeah, it unfortunately does seem so.

Here's hoping Nintendo hears fans' cries and acts on them – I know I'll be waiting.

"Bro am I talentless": Pokemon Pokopia players are already blowing fellow fans' minds with their builds, proving they're just as creative as the Animal Crossing and Minecraft community

As someone borderline dependent on Animal Crossing for my nighttime wind down, there's no way I could turn my back on my island fam – my sweet Chester, my kibble-loving Nibbles. But I have to say, I haven't been this jealous of an adjacent cozy community in a minute, as Pokemon Pokopia players have been sharing some of the most wonderfully unhinged dialogue I've seen since the early '00s, back when the original Animal Crossing's villagers would send you letters with musings like, "I fear oblivion."

Anyway, back to Pokopia. Poking around on social media, it seems like Nintendo really let its Pokemon writers run wild in a way that's genuinely refreshing to see after years of milquetoast dialogue. Here's just a few of my favorites so far:

the way i instantly took a screenshot of the dialogue that post is referencing 😭😭😭 icon behavior from bulbasaur #pokopia

— @feraligite.bsky.social (@feraligite.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-10T18:39:40.207Z

By comparison, as much as I treasure my precious Animal Crossing community, when you have more than 500 hours across six years of play time, it does start to get old hearing the same canned dialogue shared across multiple different villagers with the same personalities. Again, Chester, you're the best Animal Crossing villager ever, but if I have to hear about your dang bug friends one more time, I might have to see what Pokopia's all about.

Legitimately, from these early impressions it seems like there's a lot more care that was put into making sure each individual Pokemon has its own unique personality, whereas Animal Crossing dialogue is largely pre-determined by personality type. Although, to be fair, Animal Crossing is six years old and came out during a different console generation. With New Horizons recently getting its huge 3.0 update, it's clear Nintendo isn't done with Animal Crossing, but it might have to channel its GameCube-era writing to compete with Pokopia.

Meanwhile: Pokopia players can't fathom just how big the Pokemon spin-off is so far: "More feature rich and wider in scope than Animal Crossing has ever been."

Pickmon, a so-called "multiplayer open-world survival crafter" as per its official Steam page, has been making rounds online thanks to its glaring similarities to both Nintendo's Pokemon and Pocketpair's Palworld – and now, apparently, fan artists' own work, too.

If you haven't heard of Pickmon yet, it's a creature collector that plays much like a blend of both Pokemon and Palworld… and looks a little bit too much like them. Heck, its developer is even called PocketGame – no, not Pocketpair. PocketGame.

From its Charizard-esque monsters to its guns and survival-aligned gameplay, it's no surprise that Pokemon and Palworld comparisons are just about everywhere online right now.

But, amid all the discussions surrounding possible lawsuits akin to The Pokemon Company's own against Pocketpair for patent infringement, there are folks trying to shed light on what they allege is Pickmon ripping off their personal fan art.

Elpsy, one such person, writes in a post, "Pickmon stole one of my designs!" Attached are images comparing Mega Meganium, a grass/fairy-type fan 'mon they created… and Pickmon's supposed doppelganger.

It's hard to deny the similarities, really – in fact, it appears as though the only difference is in some coloration and detail. As Elpsy puts it, "They didn't even try to change something and make it a bit less obvious."

Apparently, they're not alone in the matter either, as fellow Pokemon players flag in the comments that other fan artists have seemingly had their designs ripped by Pickmon's devs, too.

One fan links to a separate thread, in which fan artist Jayjaymons says, "No, it's literally my fan design for Mega Ceruledge stolen right there." Much like Elpsy's own post, this one includes an image of Jayjaymons' own design in response to the alleged copy seen in Pickmon's trailer.

To be fair, this one resembles both Jayjaymons' art as well as Pokemon's official Ceruledge 'mon, but it's important to note that various creators are sharing concerns over potential stolen art.

People are pointing out how ridiculous it all appears to be, with one reply under Elpsy's post reading, "God, they couldn't even be bothered to change the pose, the antennas literally line up perfectly" – and, yeah, they certainly seem to.

As for the ever-elusive PocketGame, the Pickmon studio has yet to respond to any of the controversy online… but it's quite hard to believe they've not seen it, or at least, considered it would happen.

"Hurry up with Palworld 1.0": An impatient fan spams Pocketpair's indie publishing arm with a "great pitch" begging for the survival game's full launch.

Amid all the Pokemon and Palworld clones out there, fans have found one that may just take the cake as the most egregious yet – a so-called "multiplayer open-world survival crafter" known as Pickmon… yes, Pickmon.

Over a year ago, the Nintendo-owned Pokemon Company filed a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement – a case that's still ongoing. It's a situation that's still fresh in fans' memories, especially with Palworld's big 1.0 update underway.

It seems like Nintendo and Pocketpair might have to set their sights elsewhere for a bit, however, as Pickmon is undeniably a doppelganger of sorts… of both games.

As per its official Steam page, Pickmon is currently in development by a studio called – wait for it – PocketGame. No, not Pocketpair. PocketGame. Much like in Pokemon and Palworld, you're tasked with building up a team of "Pickmon" to "fight, farm, and build industrial empires while thwarting a shadowy organization's plot."

I wonder what the organization could be called. Team Shmocket? Shmayne Shmyndicate?

In all seriousness, the whole creature-collecting vibe matches Pokemon and Palworld's, except you use cards to capture Pickmon. It's not like a deck builder or anything – you literally fling singular cards at the beasties to catch them.

Unsurprisingly, the web has caught wind of the game and the fact that it's, well, undeniably a blatant clone. One person points out the similarity between PocketGame and Pocketpair in a post, amused.

"They're even called PocketGame LMAO," they write. "I can't stop laughing. We're now living in the Slop era of Slop World clones."

Elsewhere, another person shares a thread noting that the Pickmon screenshots feature an obvious copy of Pokemon's own Charizard. "My brother in Christ, they even copied Charizard and made him into a bird type. What fresh madness did we all wake up to today?"

Interestingly enough, a commenter points out that it might actually be a rip-off of a Palworld design redone to look like a Pokemon design.

"There's layers to this because that's a stolen model from Palworld edited to look like a Charizard," they explain. "The same way Palworld made its models using Pokemon as bases." Attached is a picture of Quivern from Palworld, which, when mixed with Charizard, looks like the Pickmon model.

"It's like this whole game is made to parody Palworld's bad practices by highlighting what they did," the person concludes.

A separate poster echoes the sentiment that Pickmon is indeed a shameless clone, stating, "This game is going to get heavily sued by Nintendo; it's got Pikachu, Charizard, straight up rip-offs of Pokemon, and is called 'Pickmon?' What am I seeing right now?" I mean, I do see their point.

And apparently, plenty of other folks do, too. My favorite thing to come of all this has to be the humor surrounding it, though.

As one user jokes, "Y'know what, I think it's really ballsy to even jack the shit from Palworld. I hope someone makes a game that just rips Pickmon's designs too, and it just becomes this weird game of telephone."

Wouldn't that be something? Keep your eyes peeled for Pickpalmon, I suppose.

"Hurry up with Palworld 1.0": An impatient fan spams Pocketpair's indie publishing arm with a "great pitch" begging for the survival game's full launch

Pokopia, the new Pokemon spin-off making waves for its cozy gameplay, has only been out for four days now – but that hasn't stopped its wildly creative fans from building everything from beautiful homes to literal lavafalls.

With the cozy aesthetic of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and building-heavy Minecraft vibes, Pokemon Pokopia is a haven for folks who enjoy expressing their creativity in-game. Unsurprisingly, some fans have spent the past few days conjuring up all sorts of impressive builds – so impressive, in fact, that it's blowing the minds of fellow players who might not be quite as stuck into the more creative side of the new Nintendo gem just yet.

Sharing the video of one very organized player's storage area – handy decorated signs and all – one such mind-blown Pokemon fan admits, "I am really liking Pokopia, but it's clear that I will never be 'good' at this kind of game."

They explain in the comments that they're making a joke, but they're certainly not alone in feeling that way. "My island sucks aah, but my little fellas are happy with it, and that's the only thing that matters," a reply reads.

Elsewhere, a similar post shows an admittedly stunning white house, garden and all, with a fan questioning, "HOW?" An amusing response contains a screenshot of a blocky brown house and some words I think many of us can relate to (I know I can, looking at these builds, anyway): "Bro am I talentless."

Someone else jests, "These blocks just don't spawn in my game ig." They don't spawn in mine either, apparently… Mood.

A separate thread highlights another beautiful build: a cute cottage with a little dock and mill in front, trees surrounding it. "Am I doing smth wrong with the game?" asks the person sharing the post.

The top comment sees a fan exclaim, "The Animal Crossing creatives and Minecraft builders are showing all the regular pokemon players up… I'm SICK." It's funny, but I suppose it makes sense. Pokopia has drawn in all sorts of masterminds.

I've been eyeing some jaw-dropping builds online myself, hoping to spark some inspiration. After spotting a cave house with an indoor lavafall and Cyberpunk-esque neon home, though, I think I'll just go back to practicing… I've clearly got a long way to go.

Pokopia players can't fathom just how big the Pokemon spin-off is so far: "More feature rich and wider in scope than Animal Crossing has ever been."

Pokemon Scarlet and Violent, the ninth generation of Pokemon, also released on Nintendo Switch but, compared to Pokemon Sword and Shield, is much more ambitious, taking a lot of cues from spin-off Pokemon Legends Arceus. Instead of limiting open areas to wild zones, the Paldea region is fully open-world. Some may chafe against this sheer looseness, but for those who want to just be let off the leash to catch creatures, this is one of the best Pokemon games for catering to that.

Given spin-off followup, Pokemon Legends Z-A, further evolves this formula, it seems that the big open world experiment in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is here to stay – it's a defining aspect of the ninth generation because of how different it makes play compared to earlier entries. Still, there's plenty more additions when it comes to new types of Pokemon transformations, and how the adventure is structured around your role as a student in Paldea. Read on to see more about the new features introduced in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and how it's evolved the series.

5. The open road

Throwing Trainers into a vast open world, you're allowed to venture in any direction you choose. However, a lack of level scaling limits you somewhat. You might accidentally wander into an area with wild Pokemon too strong to stand against, or overlevel your own squad so much that Gym Leaders are no longer a challenge.

4. Let's Go!

As seen in select previous titles, you're able to call out the first Pokemon in your party to follow you around by hitting the ZR trigger. But you can also use the R button to direct your Pokepal to collect items on the ground and enter battles on its own, with the winner decided based on type and level. Perfect for grinding XP and materials.

3. Tera power

We've seen Mega Evolution, Z-Moves and Dynamaxing, but in Paldea it's all about the Terastal Phenomenon. When a Pokemon Terastallizes, it turns crystalline and takes on its Tera type, boosting any moves of the same type. A Pokemon's Tera type can be completely different to its original typing, allowing for some creativity in battles.

2. Picnic party

From the menu, you can set up a table for your team to gather around in the overworld. As well as replacing daycare as the new method to obtain Pokemon Eggs, you can play with, clean and check in with your squad. You can also use any ingredients you've collected to make sandwiches that provide unique bonuses.

1. Stay in school

Befitting the game's school setting, you can attend optional classes in Biology, Math, History, Languages, Battle Studies, Home Economics and Art, with six lessons per subject. Even Pokemon veterans might learn something new here, and doing well in your midterm and final exams will yield rewards and faculty friendships.

Pokemon Sword and Shield is the first mainline Pokemon game that launched on a home console instead of just on a handheld. That's thanks to Nintendo Switch itself, a hybrid console that merged Nintendo's home and portable console lines into being one and the same, which means a lot of the changes that came to this eighth generation of Pokemon revolve around reckoning with crossing both of those styles of play.

For instance, Pokemon Sword and Shield experiments with wild areas, where the more linear, classic-style routes fully open into huge areas with roaming Pokemon. On the other hand, battle changes play with the 'bigness' afforded by the move to Nintendo Switch, Dynamax and Gigantamax transformations taking the concept of Mega Evolutions from Pokemon X and Y even further, with huge gym challenges and battles that felt like set pieces. And, if you simply want to visit the Pokemon take on the UK, the Galar region, this is one of the best Pokemon games for doing so. Stick around and read on as we count down the biggest changes Pokemon Sword and Shield brought to the series with the eighth generation.

5. Wild area

The Wild Area marked a major departure from other Pokemon locations by giving you a vast stretch of land to explore. Here you'll find all types of Pokemon to catch, some of which are too high-leveled at first but are ideal for fleshing out and improving your team later on.

4. Dynamax and Gigantamax

Sword & Shield made it possible for you to temporarily increase the size and stats of every Pokemon. While every one can Dynamax, however, a handful of species can Gigantamax and gain access to exclusive G-Moves to help turn the tide of Trainer battles.

3. Gym challenges

Gym Leaders and Badge collecting make a welcome return in Pokemon's full Nintendo Switch debut, but an element of Sun & Moon's Island Trials cross over in the form of Gym Challenges. These precede every Gym Leader battle and often revolve around a unique minigame or puzzle.

2. Max raid battles

Pokemon had been searching for ways to let Trainers play co-operatively for a while. Well, in Sword & Shield the series cracked it by implementing what's known as Max Raid Battles. These you will find in the Wild Area, allowing teams of four to challenge a Dynamaxed Pokemon.

1. Expansion packs

Despite being the case for most mainline instalments, Sword & Shield didn't receive an expanded standalone third entry. Instead, Game Freak continued the games' story, introduced new locales and expanded the Pokedex via two separate DLC expansions: The Isle Of Armor and The Crown Tundra.

Now that Pokopia, the cozy Animal Crossing: New Horizons-esque Pokemon spin-off, has been out in the wild for a solid day, folks have been reporting back on what they think of it – and it's safe to say most players are very impressed so far.

Pokemon Pokopia is huge. So huge, in fact, it's almost too huge. It's got the day-to-day jobs and chores Animal Crossing titles do, coupled with the creative building from games like Dragon Quest Builders – and even Minecraft, which arguably stands as the most iconic sandbox experience to date.

You have Pokemon to tend to, materials to suck up as a human-y Ditto, decorations to place, and so much land to scape… so much.

A recent thread on Reddit sees fans discussing Pokopia and the mind-boggling potential for creativity it boasts, aptly titled, "This game is HUGE." The poster exclaims, "I have never been so awestruck and paralyzed on what to do next," going on to then ask, "Anyone else simultaneously struggling and overwhelmed while also insanely excited about this?"

I'm (pleasantly) unsurprised to report that lots of players comment in agreement.

This game is HUGE. from r/Pokopia

"I'm SO overwhelmed," reads one reply. "I have a job Nintendo. But I'm not complaining. I really appreciate how much they gave us with this game." Somebody responds, "I think we are all a bit overwhelmed."

Elsewhere in the thread, a fan says, "Bought it thinking it was just Animal Crossing with a Pokemon skin" – but Pokopia turned out to be "more feature-rich and wider in scope than Animal Crossing has ever been," in their opinion.

The Animal Crossing comparisons don't end there, though. Another person comments, "It feels huge. The first map feels like it can give 10x more content than Animal Crossing." My favorite response of all, however, states that Pokopia "feels like the truest expression of Pokemon yet."

If that's not a compliment, I'm not sure what is – and it certainly checks out, seeing as the game is tied with Y as the Pokemon series' best title to date.

Something tells me the positive reception is only going to grow from here – heck, some fans are still waiting to receive their copies of Pokopia in the mail. With so much to uncover and so little time with the game so far, I look forward to seeing how it all evolves.

Are you playing the cozy new gem yourself? Be sure to browse our roundup of all the current Pokemon Pokopia Mystery Gift codes and rewards for a little treat or two.

Behind its cutesy designs and wholesome life sim gameplay loop, Pokemon Pokopia is quite an odd game, seemingly set in a post-apocalyptic Kanto however many years, decades, or centuries after humans up and left the region. But that also means the crafty game can give us a peek into the series' future, and notably acknowledges one Pokemon mystery that's been left hanging for 30 years.

So, yeah, Pokopia's world is full of dilapidated Pokemon Centers, half-finished or destroyed buildings, lonely pocket monsters who sometimes yearn for things long gone, and a distracting lack of humans. Still, some eagle-eyed fans have managed to deduce that one of the game's areas is a neglected version of Kanto's Vermillion City based on its layout and placement of key landmarks.

And, of course, the lore sickos among us had one thing on their mind: Whatever happened to that old man who was forever stuck building something in the area? For context, during the first generation of Pokemon games, you can find one dude in Vermillion City who's planning to make a building on a plot of land. In Gen 2, you find out that him and his Machop gave up on their dream.

For three decades, players didn't know what the NPC builder was planning on constructing or whether he eventually achieved his goal.

Fast forward to now, streamer Cecilily decided to trace that man's location in Pokemon Pokopia. Lo and behold, a slightly worn lighthouse stands where the old man's plot of land would have been. You can even find a document nearby that all but confirms it, framed as an in-universe interview with the builder, who we now know is called Kenzo, and became renowned as the "owner of the largest building in the area."

He even shouts out his old Machop who since evolved into a Machamp. They really did think of everything, huh? "My family has dreamed of constructing a building here for generations," he says in the interview, and it's fair to say some fans have also been dreaming of this day themselves.

"This is literally my childhood dream," Cecilily exclaims on stream. "I'm so happy I could die. Game of the year... This game is for the hardcore lore freaks."

For now, here's how to level up environments in Pokemon Pokopia and how to change humidity in Pokemon Pokopia.

Pokemon fans have noticed some little details in Scarlet and Violet that seemingly foretold Pokemon Winds and Waves four years early, leading to speculation that two new 'mons might have been teased, too.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet rival Nemona has some interesting decor in her house, but when the game first released in 2022, no one really paid it much attention – likely being too busy focusing on the horrible performance issues. However, once Pokemon Legends: Z-A released last year, some noticed that one of the paintings included has a striking resemblance to Mega Greninja, which wasn't introduced until last year.

Now though, it appears that the rabbit hole goes even deeper. As spotted by soulsilverart on Twitter, looking at Nemona's house after the reveal of Winds and Waves, we can see some interesting details. Namely, she has a stained glass design of Tropius in the doorframe, and a painting of two Lumineon.

Who is the first Pokemon you see in the Pokemon Wind and Waves trailer? Well, Pikachu, but when it gets to in-game footage, it's Tropius. Meanwhile, the trailer ends with two Lumineon swimming underwater. Obviously, this implies that Game Freak planned out the Winds and Waves trailer four years ago, but given that the studio has done things like this in the past – with a poster of Gigantamax Toxtricity appearing in Sun and Moon years before its debut in Sword and Shield – there's maybe some merit.

Which then brings us to the other painting in Nemona's house, that being one of two Eevee, something that, right now, can't be linked to any obvious Gen 10 or Legends Z-A content. So, what could it mean? Soulsilverart theorizes that it could imply that we might get two new Eeveelutions in Winds and Waves. One response speculates that we might see "flying type for the wind and poison type for the water depths/waves," while another tweets: "FLYING AND DRAGON PLEASE I’M BEGGING."

Safe to say, if this is true, people will be keeping an eye on every inch of Pokemon games going forward.

Before Pokemon Winds and Waves, Pokopia crushes hopes for the Sound-type that fans have been begging to see for years.

Perhaps the most special thing about Pokemon is the way it resonates with each fan in a deeply personal, unique way. Everyone holds onto those cherished memories of their first game, their first Pokemon, their original favorites, and time spent playing with their friends. Those memories are what one group of fans are doing their best to preserve with their unofficial Pokemon Rescue project.

"Every Pokemon has a history," content creator and Pokemon Rescue lead Professor Rex tells me as we sit in front of his two enormous cases of Nintendo hardware and old Pokemon games at the series' recent Europe International Championships. "And the coolest thing about the franchise is that it doesn't just end when you finish the game, you get to continue, if you choose. You can continue to make memories with that Pokemon, for all we know, forever."

Gotta save 'em all

Wandering outside the halls of EUIC 2026, it's hard to miss the setup that Rex and his brother, Professor Tops, have created. Their two huge Pelican cases, filled with retro goodness that the two siblings have been collecting for over 10 years, look like high-tech first-aid kits, with inspiration taken from the official Pokemon Rescue Team event held in Japan in 2017, which helped players transfer their old Pokemon up to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the newest games at the time.

Ads released for the event showed people acting like paramedics, dramatically recovering old Pokemon games from fans' homes and anxiously completing the transfer processes to bring the 'mons over to the 3DS installments. Rex, Tops, and their friends offer the same service – albeit without the emergency services roleplay – and now with the extra steps required to bring a Pokemon to Pokemon Home on the Switch and Switch 2, where they can be safely stored in the cloud or moved into the Switch games that they feature in.

"I just thought that [Pokemon Rescue Team] was the coolest piece of media that The Pokemon Company had ever put out," Rex says, explaining its influence. "There hasn't been any other game in history where you could take something that's 20 years old and continue to use it in a brand new game. Like, there's a very few select games that have the ability where you can have your save data influence the story in the second game, but not 10 games later.

"And then they made those trailers, and never talked about it again. Like, Pokemon Home exists, but there's never been a trailer for Pokemon Home about 'you can bring your childhood Pokemon and use it on the Switch,' and I think that's so cool."

"The main concept from the trailer is helping people transfer their old Pokemon to the new games," Tops adds. "But again, we wanted to add our own flair to it, and that's where we kind of got to the point where we are now, where we have the ability to do that, but also the ability to add new memories to people through older connections with the game."

Rex likens his service to the in-store Pokemon events of old, which required you to bring your game and handheld to receive special 'mons, and having now been witness to both, I can definitely say that the vibe is the same. The Pokemon Rescue team even offers a personalized flair with special certificates – inspired by the certificates of authenticity for the Generation 1 event Mew – recording the name of the Pokemon and date it was rescued for each person to take home. "If one person holds onto it as something that means something to them, win. That's a win to me," Rex says.

From the cases of carefully packaged game cartridges and hardware – including a massive collection of the many different language versions of the games – to the concept of Pokemon Rescue itself, this whole project is essentially a subsection of game preservation, and one that ends up being deeply personal to anyone who interacts with it.

"I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars of my own money preserving pieces of Pokemon history that would have been lost otherwise, because of the fact that everybody has a little memory that means something to them," Rex says. "There's a lot of pieces of Pokemon history that just get thrown out, literally ripped up and thrown in the trash. So yeah, game preservation is huge for me."

Each Pokemon that Rex and his team rescue essentially runs the risk of becoming a form of lost media, if not for the intervention. "We rescued a Spinda in California. It was the first Pokemon that we rescued, and it was a shiny Spinda," Rex begins. For those uninitiated, shiny Pokemon are extremely rare, differently colored variants of Pokemon that, from Generations 5 and below, only have a 1/8,192 chance of appearing. What's more, Spinda is an extremely unique Pokemon because there are over four billion possible spot patterns it can have.

"It was somebody's first shiny, and every single Spinda that exists is unique," Rex continues. "I mean, every Pokemon is unique already, but literally, every Spinda looks different."

Not only that, but Tops adds that the Sapphire cartridge that the Spinda was rescued from "was on its last leg." He explains: "It looked like it had been through the wash, it had been stomped on, it looked like it was on its last run of the game. So if anything ever happened to that game, that Spinda would have been lost. So it's cool that you're able to preserve those things, even from games that are just barely holding on, because they're 20 years old."

That's on top of the impracticalities of transferring old Pokemon up to Home if you don't have a collection of hardware and software like the Rescue team's. Transferring Pokemon from a Generation 3 game is no easy feat, requiring a Nintendo DS or DS Lite, a Generation 4 game, a 3DS and Generation 5 Pokemon game, then either a Generation 6 or 7 game and the 3DS' Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter apps, which are no longer available to download.

"You're looking at hundreds and hundreds of pounds of your own money being put up to try and do it, on top of not actually being able to do it anyways," Rex says. "So putting this all together is just like that step of making it more accessible to everybody, to be able to do the thing that Pokemon made that is so cool."

There's something about Pokemon that makes all this mean more. "Everybody has a Pokemon that made them fall in love with the game," Rex says. "You remember your first one, you remember your first event. And you also hear stories where people lost them." As far as he's concerned, "any little step I can take to just make it so that there's less of those stories and more of the stories of pulling out your phone and having your 20-year-old Pokemon," he's going to take it, and to some, that means even more than others.

"Right after [the 2025 Pokemon World Championships], I had the Rescue cases, and I was about to leave to go get dinner, and somebody ran up to me, and they just started crying right away," Rex tells me, immediately tearing up. "They played Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire with their dad as a kid, and they had a bunch of Pokemon that had their dad as the OT [original trainer].

"Their dad had a stroke and is now non-verbal, and she was taking care of him," he continues. "And she was like, 'I couldn't find my game, but I'm gonna tear my house apart, and I'm gonna find you at the next event that you're at, and I'm gonna bring those Pokemon somewhere safe.' So I brought these to Milwaukee, and I met up with them, and we brought those Pokemon up to Pokemon Home. She was crying most of the time, but then she went home, and she was able to show her dad Pokemon that they had caught together 20 years ago. And even though he couldn't say how cool it was, he was able to smile about it."

It's stories like that that are "exactly what it's all about," Tops adds, and it's impossible not to feel emotional too as I see how much the two brothers genuinely care about what they're doing and what difference they're making to fans around the world. Needless to say, Rex denies any notion that the Rescue project is in any way "performative," as has apparently been suggested before.

"Everybody that's here at an event like this [with] 10,000 people, every Pokemon Go event I've been to, tens of thousands of people, every single one of them has some reason they fell in love with the game," he says. "And maybe that was playing with your friends, playing with your family, escapism, there's something. And, I don't know, it's an honor to be able to be part of taking people on that next step in their Pokemon journey."

After all, that's something that the pair have been able to experience together growing up, from being "in the backseat of a car" and finding their first shiny Pokemon together (a Medicham in Pokemon Diamond, if you were wondering), to going to the store as kids and trying to memorize as much as possible from the Ruby and Sapphire game guides so that they could go home "finish the game together." Now, the Rescue project is the latest thing for the two to carry out together, which is "the best part."

That also means collecting more memories as they go – both their own, and from the people they help. "I collect stories. I love hearing people's stories about Pokemon," Rex smiles. "Every time somebody shares a story of their Pokemon journey with me, that's locked away in the important box."

"We had no idea this would be such a phenomenon": As Pokemon Red and Blue turn 30, here's how Game Freak created one of the most important RPGs of all time.

Pokemon Sun and Moon, the seventh generation of monster collector, stayed put on Nintendo 3DS, but still managed to find fresh ways to evolve beyond Pokemon X and Y. After all, arriving late in the handheld's life cycle, Game Freak were able to get much more out of the console by the time Sun and Moon released. Still in 3D, for instance, the untethered exploration along each route feels much more free form (aided by new traversal options enabled by certain special Pokemon).

Like all the best Pokemon games, Pokemon Sun and Moon added plenty of new creatures to collect but with a twist – the sunny, Hawaiian inspired Aloha region includes special, unique forms for classic Pokemon inspired by the tropical setting, meaning old favorites get a new lease of life. Likewise, special moves neatly evolved from mega evolutions, making for a sunny adventure that remains one of my favorites to revisit when I just want to soak in some fantastic vibes. Read on as we run down the top ways Pokemon Sun and Moon moved the series forward.

5. Rotom pokedex

Rotom is a Ghost/Electric Pokemon introduced in Gen 3 that can possess inanimate objects, and in Sun & Moon it inhabits your Pokédex, which unlocks a suite of new features exclusive to this entry. In addition to being a real-time map, it will also indicate any areas of interest, take pictures and even speak to you.

4. Z-moves

Z-Moves offer you a strategic advantage in battles, acting as ultimate abilities that can only be used once per battle. Trainers need two items to make them work: the Z-Ring and a Z-Crystal. Have a compatible Pokemon hold the necessary Z-Crystal, and enjoy moves like Tectonic Rage and Breakneck Blitz.

3. Poke-ride

Previously the bane of every Pokemon Trainer's adventure, Hidden Machines (HMs) were finally done away with by the time of Sun & Moon's release. Taking their place was the much more visually delightful and fun Poké Ride feature, which lets you instantly summon one of seven different Pokemon useful for travelling.

2. Pokemon Pelago

The PC Box becomes its own miniscule paradise for any transferred Pokemon in what's known as Poké Pelago. Once here, members of your Poké-party can gradually raise their own level and stats by engaging in fun activities. They will even gather up useful items if you send them out on adventures.

1. Battle royal

Battle Royal is a new type of Pokemon battle that sees four different Trainers fight it out against one another simultaneously. It's a mode accessed in the Battle Royal Dome located on Akala Island's Royal Avenue, and the winner is the person who manages to knock out the most Pokemon.

New Pokemon Types are always a contentious topic with fans, but Pokemon Pokopia seemingly just confirmed that the much-requested Sound-type isn't in the pipeline anytime soon, crushing one half of the fandom's hopes and making the other half rejoice.

With Pokemon Winds and Waves on the horizon, trainers are once again wondering if Generation 10 will finally add a brand-new Type to the franchise. People often speculate about Light-type, Cosmic-type, and sometimes even Gourmet-type pocket monsters, but one of the longest-running theories is centred around the Sound-type.

Since Generation 3, Sound has been a sub-type of sorts. Several moves in the series are sound-based and have specific properties, from Supersonic to Torch Song, which simply adds fuel to all the speculation. The ability Punk Rock even boosts the power of sound-based moves, for example, though they don't have specific elemental strengths or weaknesses like the other 18 official types do.

And after seeing Stereo Rotom in the promotional material for Pokemon Pokopia, the newly-released cutesy life sim spin-off, droves of fans were once again on the Sound-type hype train. How could a literal speaker-shaped creature, whose entire purpose is to blast sound, not be here to introduce the Sound-type?

However, Pokopia's Pokedex lists Stereo Rotom as an Electric-Normal-type critter, which is making many a trainer second guess themselves. "Why would they do such a thing if not for the future?" Serebii creator Joe Merrick tweets in reference to Stereo Rotom.

"Sound type is DEAD," one fan proclaims. Another speculates that Stereo Rotom's typing is evidence that The Pokemon Company isn't interested in Sound, "considering this was the perfect opportunity and they did not take it."

"Kinda glad this shoots down the 'Sound' Type," a third argues. "Sound is already a subtype of move, and are we really gonna change the typings of moves like Torch Song, Bug Buzz, Grasswhistle, and Sparkling Aria, which are already well fitted into other types?"

To play devil's advocate, DJ Rotom's existence doesn't completely rule out the possibility of Sound-types being added in Pokemon Winds and Waves because, I think, The Pokemon Company would be way more willing to add a new Type in a mainline game than it would in a spin-off that doesn't even feature Pokemon battles. Still, that's not me advocating for Sound, either. Pokemon Types work so well because they immediately make real-world sense - water puts out fire, fire melts ice, ice freezes flyers - and it's kind of impossible to make Sound fit without doing mental gymnastics.

Game Freak can't add hundreds of new Pokemon and more Types every generation or else new games would take too long to make, director says: "If you added like 300 or so new monsters, that'd just be too many."

The original Pokemon games, originally Pocket Monsters Red and Green in Japan, are some of the most formative RPGs of all time, but if the original Game Boy's game cartridges had just a little bit less memory, they may have never existed.

Playing the recently released Switch and Switch 2 versions of the Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed remakes, I'm genuinely astounded that Game Freak managed to pack so much RPG into a literal Game Boy game, and according to the game's original programmer, Junichi Masuda, it was a near-constant struggle.

"That was an overriding theme – it was a fight against capacity, a fight against what we could fit onto the cartridge," Masuda said as part of an old interview with games™ (a sister publication to Retro Gamer). "We had designed these 150-odd Pokemon to get in as well."

Nowadays, the folks at Game Freak have plenty of console memory to stuff as many mons into new Pokemon games as they want, but they have to put a cap on the amount to ensure reasonable development times. But back in the Game Boy era, developers had to worry about things like... movement.

"But then we had the problem of movement, so we came up with the idea of the map tiles being the things that moved while the character was animated in place," added Masuda. "With these ideas, we found ways to squeeze as much in as we possibly could. I like the Game Boy as a machine but trying to work with all these challenges and make a game that anyone could get into and enjoy was difficult."

Coming back to Pokemon Yellow 30 years later is like coming home – and playing it in 2026 is even better than when I was a kid

There are well over 1,000 Pokemon now, steadily added in batches of about 100 new creatures every generation. It's easy to wonder if developer Game Freak is going to run out of ideas, but, historically, that didn't seem to be a major concern at the studio. In fact, the devs apparently have so many ideas for new Pokemon that the real challenge is narrowing them down.

As veteran Pokemon art director Ken Sugimori previously explained in an old interview with games™ (a sister publication to Retro Gamer), "The reason why there are about 100 Pokemon added per game is not that we can't come up with the ideas, especially when we have new staff – everyone can come up with unique ideas. The number is set by the duration of the project."

So roughly 100 Pokemon were about as many as the studio felt it could make in a reasonable development cycle, but there was also an added concern: "If you added like 300 or so new monsters, that'd just be too many – we have to think of the balance of battles," Sugimori said.

Balance is also a big part of why only three additional Pokemon Types have been added over the years. "By adding even one more Type, it definitely makes the gameplay more complicated so when we did that, we had to really look into the battle balance," Sugimori said. "With new moves, there's an infinite combination. If we can solve that problem, we can always add more Types – it's not impossible."

In fact, the new Types we have gotten over the years have often specifically addressed balance problems with existing Type matchups. I distinctly remember feeling relieved when Pokemon Gold and Silver introduced Steel and Dark-Type Pokemon, both of which countered Psychic Types, which could previously absolutely destroy the vast majority of opponents. When I recently returned to Pokemon Yellow, I found that a single Alakazam was pretty much carrying me through the game, even.

Balance was tricky even back then, but it's a hundred times harder to get right these days in an era when players are competing online and have access to vast amounts of strategic information across the internet. So it's good to know that Game Freak still has plenty of ideas for new Pokemon – and equally good to hear that the studio isn't keen to dump them all into a single game, especially if it would make the dev cycles even longer.

The Pokemon Winds and Waves starters offer our first look at what the next generation of creatures will have in store.

Pokemon Pokopia is just hours away at this point, and the devs are already detailing post-launch events to keep you coming back in the weeks and months to come. The first of these events will introduce the Hoppip evolutionary line to the game and offer an array of picnic-themed items to add to your world.

The event, called "More Spores for Hoppip," begins on Monday, March 9 at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm GMT, and ends on Tuesday, March 24, at those same times. During the event, as long as you've completed the early-game task of rebuilding the Pokemon Center, you'll be able to befriend the Gen 2 Grass/Flying cutie, Hoppip.

Cotton spores will also appear during the event period, which you can collect and exchange "for picnic-themed furniture items," according to the official announcement. "By using these items to create habitats, you'll be able to befriend Skiploom and Jumpluff, too," completing the Hoppip evolution trio.

"These Pokemon can't be encountered outside of this event," the announcement warns, so you might want to prioritize them during the next few weeks. Given how much Animal Crossing DNA is in Pokopia, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this is similar to seasonal events in that game, which recur every year.

This is just the first in a series of "special limited-time in-game events," though we don't yet know what shape further events will take. You'll also be able to pick up a special item via the in-game Mystery Gift option. A cute l'il Ditto rug will be available via that menu until January 31, 2027, so there's a lot more time to grab this bonus.

The Pokopia Metacritic score is up there with the series' best, and Sam has superlative praise in our own Pokemon Pokopia review. This is a "brilliantly bizarre blend of Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Dragon Quest Builders, and Viva Piñata," she writes, "and despite its many influences, manages to be a unique spin-off for the Pokemon series that's also an accomplished life sim."

If you're counting down to the Pokemon Pokopia release time, you can get a full breakdown of the launch at that link.

Pokemon X and Y moved the series from Nintendo DS to Nintendo 3DS and, as you might expect, one of the biggest changes was taking the monster collecting into full 3D for the first time. Gone were 2D sprites, and in were 3D models for every Pokemon present, bridging the gap between the home console battle-centric spin-offs to having it as standard in the full RPG adventures, which has remained true since.

But, there's more to the Pokemon X and Y than a visual shift, the sixth generation adding vital new mechanics that have colored the series since. After all, mega evolutions have informed later special transformations – and recently was a core mechanic in Pokemon Legends Z-A. The Kalos region has some really interesting lore, and the 3D shift makes it so it feels more immersive to explore for yourself than the greater abstraction of past entries – there's a reason so many still hold these games as some of the best Pokemon games in their hearts and were so excited to return to the region in Legends Z-A. Stick around and read below as we count down the biggest feature additions Pokemon X and Y made to the series, and why you should dust off that Nintendo 3DS.

5. Mega evolutions

Evolving had been core to Pokemon since the beginning, but in X & Y the concept received a significant buff in the form of Mega Evolutions. Here, any Pokemon holding the appropriate Mega Stone could change appearance and boost their stats, giving Trainers an advantage during battles.

4. Wonder trade

Pokemon X & Y were the most interconnected entries yet at the time, providing plenty more unique ways to engage with players online. One of the most notable was Wonder Trade, which enabled you to upload any captured Pokemon and exchange it for a random one offered by another player.

3. O-powers

These were limited-time effects players could share with one another, spanning everything from improved egg hatching to increasing XP. Points were gained from battles, staying connected and seeing someone else use them nearby meant you were able to access them too.

2. Trainer customization

For the very first time in a Pokemon game, X & Y allowed players to implement a splash of personality onto their Trainer. It was possible to customise your shoes, hat and even backpack, leading Kalos' many shops to all offer different outfit styles.

1. Fairy type

Any time a new Pokemon type gets introduced, it's controversial among a small subset of fans. However, in X & Y's defence, Game Freak stated that Fairy's inclusion was necessary to help provide a counterbalance to those that were Dragon type – and it gave Eevee a new evolutionary option in Sylveon.

Pokopia, the new Pokemon spin-off making waves for its cozy gameplay, isn't just similar to Animal Crossing: New Horizons – apparently, it boasts a bit of Minecraft flair as well, with a mechanic that resembles Redstone-powered creations.

If you've ever employed the use of good ol' Redstone in Minecraft, then you know it's a very unique element that allows you to do everything from functional computing to powering note blocks to create music in-game. It's incredibly versatile – and it looks as though we might get something similar in Pokopia.

During yesterday's developer island tour (below), we got a sneak peek at some of the life sim's features, and that's when fans spotted it.

At around the 5:08 mark, Pokopia director Takuto Edagawa shows off one of his creations – something he says he spent the latter half of 2025 on. "If you step on this, the lights gradually turn on, the waterfall starts flowing…" It's a note block, basically, and it powers exactly what Edagawa says it does – lights, neon LEDs, and a flowing waterfall.

It's a whole lot like, you guessed it, Redstone. There's even an intentional time delay.

Edagawa explains that it works via a motion-sensing system. Unsurprisingly, though, fans can't get enough of the block-operated build, and the Redstone comparisons are running wild online.

One person writes in a post that Pokopia has a power system "inspired" by Minecraft's own Redstone gimmick, while another exclaims, "THERE'S RED STONE MECHANICS IN POKOPIA?!" It would seem so, anon. It would seem so.

Elsewhere in a thread, somebody says, "It's so hard to even compare Pokopia to Animal Crossing or Minecraft anymore, with how specific you can be with the customization. This is like super advanced Redstone shit."

Attached is not only a clip of Edagawa's lights and waterfall, but another from the dev island tour in which there's a moving minecart activating note blocks to produce a little tune. It's definitely giving Minecraft vibes, in the best way.

I'm thrilled to see how much customization Pokopia has to offer its players. With the game releasing tomorrow, there's not too long left until we all get to explore it for ourselves. I, for one, can't wait to hop in and put my creativity to the test.

As Pokopia ties for the series' best game according to Metacritic, fans are left confused by its competition: "…Pokemon Y was the highest-rated Pokemon game?"