Some of Pokemon Sword and Shield's online features will stop being updated soon

Some of Pokemon Sword and Shield's online features will be changing as of next month. 

As shared by Serebii.net, The Pokemon Company has put out a notice to let Pokemon Sword and Shield players know that some of the online connectivity will be changing going forward. 

As of November 1, 2022, Pokemon Sword and Shield will receive one final Wild Area News update which will add new Pokemon such as Gigantamax and Snorlax. As well as this, the Battle Stadium will no longer update with a ranked season after November 1, and the results for the Ranked Battle Season will also not appear in Pokemon Home. 

Online competitions will be coming to an end, too, but friendly competitions can still be played, they just won't appear in Pokemon Home as of December 1, 2022. Finally, all Y-Comm features and "other online features" will continue to be accessible. 

It makes sense why The Pokemon Company would start to slowly reduce the number of things it needs to tend to in the older Pokemon games. Despite only releasing in 2019, we've had almost three new Pokemon games since the release of Sword and Shield. First up we had the Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remake, then we had Pokemon Legends Arceus, and now we're on the fast track to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet which is due to release next month. 

If you haven't been keeping up with all things Pokemon Scarlet and Violet recently, we were recently introduced to a number of new Pokemon that will be coming to the gen nine game including Wiglett, Grafaiai, Farigiraf, and more. We also got to see a little of the new picnic feature coming to the upcoming game, and most recently new gym trainer Iono made her debut. 

Need something to play in the meantime? Take a look at our best Pokemon games for inspiration.