Pokemon Sword and Shield players discover an in-game PokeStop sign

Pokemon Sword and Shield: Crown Tundra
(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Pokemon Sword and Shield players have uncovered a statue that bears a striking resemblance to a PokeStop in the city of Circhester.

Just below, you can see the discovery for yourself on the Pokemon subreddit. The post points out that you can see a symbol that clearly resembles a Pokemon Go Pokestop within Pokemon Sword and Shield's city of Circhester. Underneath the original post below, someone even starts to wonder whether the characters of Pokemon Sword and Shield play Pokemon Go (Christopher Nolan, eat your heart out).

I haven’t seen this anywhere online but In circhester there is a pokestop from r/pokemon

In fact, we've done a bit of detective work based on the Pokemon subreddit post. Pokemon Sword and Shield's Galar region is loosely based on England, and the city of Circhester appears to strongly resemble that of Bath. In Bath, there's a PokeStop at Pulteney Bridge, which seems to bear a striking resemblance to the bridge depicted in the screenshot just above.

Perhaps when Pokemon Sword and Shield's design team were busy recreating Bath for both games as Circhester, they opted to keep the PokeStop placed next to Pulteney Bridge in the real world. Either way, it's a nice little discovery from the Pokemon community. Just when you think you've seen everything there is in a game - or in this case, two games - something brand new like this comes along.

The Pokemon Company certainly has a big year planned for the long-running franchise, which is celebrating its 25th birthday in 2021. The Pokemon Company began teasing celebration plans for the forthcoming year back in November 2020, and earlier this month it was revealed Pokemon was partnering with Katy Perry to celebrate its big birthday. We don't know what the latter half of the year holds for the franchise in terms of game releases, but we do know that the highly anticipated Pokemon Snap revival is launching in just a few months from now in April.

If you're looking to place your pre-order of Pokemon Snap for the best price possible, you should read up on our guide to pre-order new Pokemon Snap for the best deals we've seen so far.

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.