When Pokémon Legends: Z-A drops in October, everyone is going to be fawning over the franchise’s updated Kalos region. But Pokémon TCG Pocket’s next set — Wisdom of Sea and Sky — is going to be all about monsters from the Johto region, and it looks like the expansion will introduce to some interesting new gameplay mechanics like attacks that don’t require energy when it releases on July 30th.
Pokémon Concierge, the adorable stop motion Netflix series, launches its second season very soon. The show, about hospitality worker at a resort exclusively for ‘mon and their humans, returns with new episodes September 4th. The announcement came during today’s Pokémon Direct and included a brand new trailer featuring all the new poké-friends you’ll make.
Just a reminder: preorders for physical copies of Pokémon Legends: Z-A start on July 23rd, and on July 22nd, there’s going to be a new Pokémon Presents stream that’s probably going to reveal a bit more information about the game.
Just when you thought your hourglasses were safe, Pokémon TCG Pocket has announced a new Eevee-themed expansion that’s scheduled to release on June 26th and seems like it’s going to take a few cues from some of the physical card game’s most sought-after sets.
Pokémon Home has become the centerpiece of Nintendo’s larger Pokémon ecosystem, and the company announced this week that the cloud storage service is getting a new feature called Wonder Cards that will make it easier to receive event pokémon and special item giveaways.
While the next big Pokémon game won’t be releasing until later this year, Nintendo’s Japanese site says that we can expect to see Scarlet and Violet getting their long-awaited patches that will improve the games’ frame rates, visuals, and draw distances on June 5 just in time for the Switch 2’s big debut.
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Alolan era is set to continue with Extradimensional Crisis, a new expansion featuring the (technically not legendary) pokémon known as Ultra Beasts. Following the set’s launch on May 29th, there will also be new Drop, Wonder Pick, and Mass Outbreak events running throughout June to help add even more beasties to your collection.
IGN has a great interview with Chris Maple, the designer who created the iconic Pokémon logo. The whole article is worth a read, but there’s also a mystery: if you happen to have any details about Nintendos’ “crystal horse head,” make sure to hit up the author.
As Siliconera points out, the Pokémon Center in Japan just released a batch of fun household goods, ranging from a Bulbasaur planter to a Mimikyu mirror. My favorite, though, is this garbage can that actually makes Trubbish seem useful.
Following the Miraidon project created by Toyota last year, both of the legendary mascots from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have now been brought to life. The life-size Koraidon prototype is on display until Sunday at Tokyo’s Honda Aoyama Building. Its legs can actually move to imitate how the Pokémon runs in-game! The bike is only for show right now, but may be moving by this summer at a leisurely 6 mph.
Pokémon Horizons wasn’t a big part of today’s Pokémon Presents showcase, but The Pokémon Company is teasing Mega Evolution becoming part of the series, which makes it seem like Liko and Roy might be making a trip to Lumiose City.
Pokémon Unite has been teasing Suicune’s addition to its roster for a little while now, but this year’s Pokémon Presents showcase, The Pokémon Company revealed that the Gen II legendary isn’t the only heave hitter coming to the game. Following Suicune’s debut on March 1st, Pokémon Unite will add Alolan Raichu (arguably the sickest pokémon to date) in April, and Alcremie (a monster made of berries and cream) some time later this year.
The sleep-tracking game’s next update (which comes out in March) has an oddly dark tone, and players will somehow have to push back against the nightmare-inducing powers of Darkrai. Sweet dreams!
During this year’s Pokémon Presents stream, The Pokémon Company announced that the next Pokémon TCG Pocket expansion, Triumphant Light, drops on February 28th and will feature new monsters like the legendary Arceus.
The fantastically adorable Pokémon Concierge is getting new episodes this September. During today’s Pokémon Presents, The Pokémon Company announced that the second season of the stop-motion show about a lady and her Psyduck running a more wholesome, pokémon-ified version of The White Lotus hotel is coming later this year on Netflix. Also, if you haven’t seen the first season, you can catch the first four episodes for free on YouTube right now.
Last year, the Toyota Engineering Society showed off a snazzy bike inspired by Pokémon Violet’s futuristic motorcycle dragon legendary Miraidon. And now — seemingly timed to this year’s Pokémon Day — Honda is teasing its own a similar concept vehicle styled after Koraidon, Pokémon Scarlet’s more prehistoric dragon whose wheel-looking appendages are actually flotation devices. The Koraidon bike already looks sick as hell, and if its “wheels” actually spin, it’s going to be a huge improvement over Nintendo’s original design.
The annual Pokémon Presents showcase is happening at 9AM ET this morning, and with games like Legends: Z-A in the works, not to mention a brand-new Switch on the way, we’re expecting a good showing.
As I write this, it’s hunting a Mankey outside of Viridian City in Pokémon Red. It’s using the new Claude 3.7 Sonnet “hybrid reasoning model” and shows its thinking in a side window.
The stream is less interesting and slower-paced than the original Twitch Plays Pokémon. But it’s fun to see Claude’s thinking process, especially when some of it has mirrored my own while playing Pokémon games.
Update: Claude is playing Pokémon Red; I initially missed that in the Twitch description.
Though this year’s Pokémon Day will be full of announcements about the franchise’s upcoming games, it will also feature the debut of Dragonite and the Postal Worker, a new animated short produced by CoMix Wave Films — the studio behind director Makoto Shinkai‘s Suzume, Weathering With You, and Your Name.
A new trailer for the short — out on YouTube February 27th 12 AM JST — makes it look like it’s going to be a gorgeous reminder that there’s more to the Pokémon world than battling.
February 27th is Pokémon Day, which means it’s time to tease us with upcoming pocket monster updates. The Pokémon Presents event scheduled for 9AM ET next Thursday may herald more information about the next major game, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which was teased without gameplay last year for a 2025 release. Here’s hoping we at least find out if it’ll be launching on Nintendo’s Switch 2 console.
According to Bloomberg, reporting on talks between Niantic (which may be more into AI and robotics than mobile games to make use of that scanning data you provided) and Scopely Inc. If you’re not familiar with Scopely Inc. and its parent company Savvy Games, try this 2023 report.
It has more information on how Savvy is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and why the country is aiming to become a gaming “powerhouse,” according to Savvy CEO Brian Ward.
Niantic and Major League Baseball are bringing Pokémon Go to ballparks across North America for three whole seasons. Beginning on Opening Day, March 27th, each team’s home park will get themed in-game PokéStops, gyms, and routes.
The New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles, and 11 other teams will even have scheduled Pokémon Go Theme Nights, with wearable in-game home team baseball caps, timed missions, and more.
The Pokémon Company said earlier this month that it was wanted to hear feedback about Pokémon TCG Pocket’s long-awaited trade feature. And now that everyone has had a chance to experience / balk at how terrible Pocket’s trading actually is in practice, the company says it is “actively investigating ways to improve the feature.”
