A Peaceful Pokémon Spinoff Is The Nintendo Switch 2’s Most Delightful Surprise
Pokémon is taking a break from battles.
September’s Nintendo Direct included the biggest announcements yet for the Switch 2, ranging from a bizarre Virtual Boy peripheral to the reveal of a new Fire Emblem game. And along with updates on Pokémon Legends: Z-A, another, far stranger Pokémon game was shown off in one of the most interesting announcements of the Direct.
While the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will mostly follow the pattern of the main Pokémon series (despite some big changes to combat), Pokémon Pokopia goes in an entirely different direction. The game’s reveal trailer starts with a Ditto alone in a cave, before it transforms into the shape of a human girl. Venturing outside, the Ditto teams up with other Pokémon like Bulbasaur and Squirtle to learn their moves and use them to help the natural environment around them grow. Lots of Pokémon from across the series’ generations can be seen in the trailer, with the player character Ditto helping them plant crops, build homes, and decorate their little town.
Pokémon Pokopia is a peaceful life sim spinoff heading to Switch 2 in 2026.
The focus on building, customizing, and socializing immediately calls to mind games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. Like Animal Crossing, it even has a day-night cycle that matches the time you’re playing it in the real world, but a closer comparison might be Dragon Quest Builders. Pokémon Pokopia is being developed by Koei Tecmo, the developer of the similarly crafting focused spinoff of the Dragon Quest series. But while Dragon Quest Builders also features plenty of combat against its series’ iconic enemies, there’s no hint of battles in the new Pokémon spinoff.
Slated for 2026 on the Switch 2, Pokémon Pokopia looks like exactly the inventive take the series needs in a spinoff. Since the very beginning, the series has been building a world imagining Pokémon and humans living together in relative harmony, where the Pokémon themselves having full lives outside of their role in battles. We’ve seen a little bit of how Pokémon behave in the wild, in games like Pokémon Snap, and the idea of letting players experience more of how they exist in their natural state has always been an intriguing one. Pokémon Pokopia looks like the biggest step the series has ever taken in letting Pokémon exist without humans and letting players simply spend time with their favorite critters.
Pokémon Pokopia lets players build and customize houses for their Pokémon friends.
Pokémon has had its share of spinoffs already, but outside of a few exceptions, they’ve always been focused on battle. The abilities of the Pokémon themselves are well suited for that, of course, but in the fiction of the series, the same powers that make them fierce fighters would also have some uses in the wild. Turning moves like Squirtle’s water blasts and Hitmonchan’s furious fists into tools to create homes and restore the environment is an inspired idea that opens up many more gameplay possibilities than just more combat.
Battles have always been the backbone of the Pokémon series, but there are countless turn-based RPGs that feel functionally the same out there. The biggest thing behind the series’ continued success is the Pokémon themselves. With each new game, players get a heap of new creatures to obsess over, and Pokémon Pokopia seems like a natural culmination of that ever-expanding roster of cuddly monsters. Like the villagers in Animal Crossing, Pokémon will be your neighbors in Pokémon Pokopia, so players have the chance to spend some quality time with their favorites. If they end up in the game, that is — Nintendo hasn’t said yet just how many Pokémon will show up in the new life sim.
It’s a huge change from what the series usually does, but Pokémon Pokopia seems like exactly the kind of game that Pokémon needs. Aside from the first few games, my interaction with Pokémon has been entirely limited to admiring a few new additions to the roster with every update and occasionally cracking open a new card pack in Pokémon TCG Pocket. But for Pokémon Pokopia, I’m all in. The idea of a life sim where I also get to romp around with the likes of Leafeon is just too adorable an idea to pass up.
