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Pokémon Day 2026 - Pokemon Winds and Waves coming 2027! Champions April 2026

It's amazing how conflicted I came out from this direct.

First of all, WiWa looks amazing. The human characters, 2/3 starters (why the hell did we get another grass avian...?), even the graphic for Pokemon standards, underwater, some of the leaks being potentially true...

However it really doesn't feel like we are celebrating the 30th anniversary? Sure, we know have 30 starters, thematically perfect. The 2027 release is welcome so they don't rush things. Yet...excluding it, nothing really screamed we were hitting an important milestone. Maybe it's just me not remembering the 20th one well. And it's still only February, but still...

Champions seems great, but the release is kinda weird ngl. The characters have an interesting style.
 
In my opinion many competitive players and purists of traditional gameplay complain that, with the rise of the open-world approach, the focus on “classic” competitive play — structured battles, tournaments, strategic balance, and deep metagames — risks being diluted or even suppressed by the very way the game is designed. The feeling is that, if the core experience concentrates too heavily on exploration and free-form narrative objectives, the competitive scene may lose the rigid and carefully balanced structure that makes it unique and long-lasting — affecting how battles are approached, how Pokémon are trained, and how optimal teams are built.

This tension between the creative freedom of open-world gameplay and the rigor of traditional competitive play is not new to the series. With Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, discussions had already emerged about how the exploratory atmosphere and lack of linear progression could influence battle balance and even the structure of official competitions. Now, with Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves, that experience is being taken a step further, and many fans are wondering whether the competitive scene will adapt or whether it will be “suffocated” by a design philosophy that seems increasingly oriented toward personal journey and discovery.

Ultimately, Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves represent a bold new chapter for the series, with enormous potential for immersion and innovation. However, the debate remains open regarding how this direction will affect the competitive landscape: some believe that such a free-form world could inspire new strategies and new forms of battling, while others fear that the pure competitive essence may be pushed into the background. What is certain is that 2027 is shaping up to be a crucial year in understanding how Game Freak will balance exploration, storytelling, and competition within one vast game world.
 
DrrT said:
It's amazing how conflicted I came out from this direct.

First of all, WiWa looks amazing. The human characters, 2/3 starters (why the hell did we get another grass avian...?), even the graphic for Pokemon standards, underwater, some of the leaks being potentially true...

However it really doesn't feel like we are celebrating the 30th anniversary? Sure, we know have 30 starters, thematically perfect. The 2027 release is welcome so they don't rush things. Yet...excluding it, nothing really screamed we were hitting an important milestone. Maybe it's just me not remembering the 20th one well. And it's still only February, but still...

Champions seems great, but the release is kinda weird ngl. The characters have an interesting style.
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I think that any celebration without a major title to go with it is going to be doomed to feel like that
The 20th would definitely feel a lot more muted without sun & moon, you get me?





That said imagine if instead of a silly sound player they were re-releasing a minigame boy that exclusively played the original gen 1 games. What a funny thing.
 
Ravaris said:
So they probabaly desinged champiouns specificly to reward players like me who play all their games. I don't have to pay VP to recruit if I already have the mons in home, and if I don't I can go catch them. Heck I've played so much ZA ranked I have enough resorces to fully train up my mons, I don't know if EVs will carry over or be reset in champoins, but if they did hold over that would be even less VP I'd have to spend.

But it's always possible the battle pass is poorly designed either way. Items like leftovers or specific mega stones could be locked behind the paid version of the battle pass thus making it so even their most loyal players have to pay them extra money for the privlage of being competative even if they've already shelled out money for every single one of the mainline games. This would be the worst of both worlds and an abject failuer as far as I'm concerned.
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EVs being able to transfer over will be the big dealbreaker, which I'll be surprised if they do given that the stats system is fundamentally different with even an extra stat. Unless the grind to get optimal stats is extremely easy, which doesn't look to be the case. Items also need to be transferable and I don't think that will happen. I expected Pokemon Champions to work like an advertisement campaign for all their mainline games and Pokemon HOME since the new games won't be adopting the standard battle system, but unfortunately it seems like they seem to expect you to do all that and cave into their old game. Charging money up-front and getting a complete game is too old school apparently.
 
Samtendo09 said:
I know you’re joking (maybe?) but it’s too early to tell if we will get new cross-gen evolutions at all. Legends: Arceus and SV did introduced new evos back-to-back, but the focus on Megas in Z-A and no entirely new Pokémon in that game makes me doubt we might get traditional cross-gen evos this time around.

Here’s a dumb dare for me; if Ledian of all Pokémon gets a cross-gen evo, I’ll draw a free SFW sketch for the first one who got me noticed on this (if it happens of course). Colors included if that cross-gen evo is 600 BST like Archaludon.
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I don't think there will be new Megas in WiWa. We already had a fresh batch of 45 new Megas introduced in 1 game + DLC, nearly doubling the amount of Megas we had before. Plus they need to make room for the new gimmick this gen like they did with Gen 7. There might be new Megas in Gen 10, but after a few games.
Also Gen 9 had crossgen evos despite Gen 8 technically having them, so I don't see why Gen 10 can't have crossgen evos.
 
Normally this would be a silly thing to remark upon, but I noticed that the Gen 10 starters have Abilities (standard Overgrow/Blaze/Torrent of course) listed on the official site. I mention this because I know there’s been speculation about how much WW will inherit from Z-A’s combat mechanics — and if Abilities are there, then I feel like that means it’s got to be either turn-based like usual, or they’ve decided to knuckle down and get Abilities working for everyone in the new dynamic system (if so, thank god, ‘cause I hate that we still don’t know most of the Z-A Megas’ Abilities).

DrrT said:
Maybe it's just me not remembering the 20th one well. And it's still only February, but still...
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Tbf I think it may indeed be that. Today’s Presents was much more packed with stuff compared to 2016. Back then, they just did a 7-minute Pokémon Direct announcing Sun & Moon (with the “trailer” that was just the logos and some behind-the-scenes dev work clips) and RGBY for the 3DS Virtual Console. So I suppose it depends on how much celebratory value you place on the game actually releasing in a year ending in 6.

Unless you mean to franchise-wide anniversarial trappings as a whole. Though in that case, broadly speaking, I feel like they’re doing about as much as they did for the 20th (though something like the Mythical Pokémon campaign would be nice — it’s a shame that Scarlet & Violet seem to just be phoning it in with the starter Tera Raid reruns).
 
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R_N said:
I think that any celebration without a major title to go with it is going to be doomed to feel like that
The 20th would definitely feel a lot more muted without sun & moon, you get me?





That said imagine if instead of a silly sound player they were re-releasing a minigame boy that exclusively played the original gen 1 games. What a funny thing.
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I think the sound player is their take on the movement for music players that don't have screens and don't connect to the Internet (so adults aren't tempted to go on social media and kids don't play something inappropriate not knowing what it is) like the Tonieboxes. I still wish Nintendo Music was an option even though every generation I song has an FRLG version already on that app.
 
Nickeljorn said:
I think the sound player is their take on the movement for music players that don't have screens and don't connect to the Internet (so adults aren't tempted to go on social media and kids don't play something inappropriate not knowing what it is) like the Tonieboxes. I still wish Nintendo Music was an option even though every generation I song has an FRLG version already on that app.
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I didn't see it as take on a movement as much as they had a really cute idea to appeal to nostalgia not just for the game but the original system it helped resuscitate while imitating the original format. And I think it worked, the designers should get a pat on the back, it's probably the biggest throw back possible short of my idea of a "gameboy mini" that's just for pokemon

But it is also objectively silly.
 
Cuddly said:
I don't think there will be new Megas in WiWa. We already had a fresh batch of 45 new Megas introduced in 1 game + DLC, nearly doubling the amount of Megas we had before. Plus they need to make room for the new gimmick this gen like they did with Gen 7. There might be new Megas in Gen 10, but after a few games.
Also Gen 9 had crossgen evos despite Gen 8 technically having them, so I don't see why Gen 10 can't have crossgen evos.
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Yeah, that’s why I didn’t say that we might get new Megas specifically, but there’s never a guarantee for either.

Until I see one new cross-gen evo coming to WiWa though, I am not holding breath as to not make a copium fool out of myself. Definitely a non-zero chance though!
 
I'll be honest I'm not sure why we'd look at Z-A having no new Pokemon at all as evidence that WiWa won't have cross-gen evos

Like...yeah it seems like Z-A had a very particular design ethos in mind considering it was the return of megas and also likely the last time we'll be getting new megas for a while*. Meanwhile this would be a whole new generation of Pokemon. You just can't compare the two. Even if it doesn't have them I don't think we'd be able to look at Z-A as indication of anything, it'd probably need a closer look at the rest of the stuff in the generation. Like how SV had very few Paldean forms probably offset by the Paradoxes taking a similar design space (notably, we still had both and also cross-gen evos).

It just seems like being a pessimist for the sake of being pessimist.
 
R_N said:
I'll be honest I'm not sure why we'd look at Z-A having no new Pokemon at all as evidence that WiWa won't have cross-gen evos

Like...yeah it seems like Z-A had a very particular design ethos in mind considering it was the return of megas and also likely the last time we'll be getting new megas for a while*. Meanwhile this would be a whole new generation of Pokemon. You just can't compare the two. Even if it doesn't have them I don't think we'd be able to look at Z-A as indication of anything, it'd probably need a closer look at the rest of the stuff in the generation. Like how SV had very few Paldean forms probably offset by the Paradoxes taking a similar design space (notably, we still had both and also cross-gen evos).

It just seems like being a pessimist for the sake of being pessimist.
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That was the third Generation and the fifth Generation not having any cross-gen evos for your reference (Gen 3 does have to new babies in Azurill and Wynaut) so it’s not like there’s no precedent, but you have a very good point on both Z-A and SV regardless.
 
How good WiWa looks and the fact it seems to be having a 4-5 year dev cycle, I'm feeling very vindicated. I've said before and before the big issue with the games is time. Now they have a timeframe that's for a modern video game, and it looks pretty good.
 
I will say I don't want to sound like a cunt but I doooo hope that now that they have the hang of making visuals look good, that they focus on visuals looking cohesive. never been a big fan of realistic world with stylized characters, id love for some more heavily stylized environment design
 
What I hope returns is Frostbite to re-replace Freeze. And for all stun mechanics besides flinching from specifically Fake Out/Upper Hand to be reworked.
Safe to say the vast majority of people don’t like these mechanics. Accuracy is kind of a necessary evil since most moves need it to be balanced (most of the time), but I’ll rarely see anyone defend Freeze and even when I do find someone who defends it, it is a type of person who thinks Gengar learns Shadow Ball in Gen 1.
Frostbite would be an amazing rework of Freeze and would actually allow it to be part of the game, not just the computer randomly deciding to screw over 1 player for no reason.
 
CynicalGiant said:
every other joke on social media about the fire starter is it becoming fire/fighting...

it has been 5 generations since the last fire/fighting starter, nearly 16 years ago. I need people to get new jokes.
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To be completely honest, it's not so much the Fire/Fighting meme, but the fact that most people expect the fire starter to just become another bipedal furry bait.

That's been pretty much a standard for several generations now. Fuecoco->Skeledirge is practically the only exception since gen 3, and the only reason is probably cause Meowscarada got that honor for gen 9.
 
I think this is a solid set of starters. Kinda funny how the general consensus so far seems to be "I thought they were really ugly when I first saw them and then warmed up to then in 5 minutes"

I wonder what types we are going to get. The dog vaguely gives me Fire/Fairy vibes, Pombon could be from Bon-Bon. Altho it is hard to tell based off first form alone and a not very helpful dex entry

Browt is weird to me bc the site puts some emphazis on its legs which immediately screams Grass/Fighting, but it would be really odd to double down on that after making another Grass/Fighting bird starter in Hisuian Decidueye (and also just recently releasing a Grass/Fighting mega starter). I could maybe see Dark or Ground if it goes in the "fighting rooster" direction with its evos

Gecqua I have a heavy feeling is gonna be Psychic. The site mentions it being veryy smart, it has some pink accents already, and I can evry easily see the final design having some psychedelicpatters playing off of irl gecko scale patterns
 
If Gecqua ends up being Water/Poison I’m definitely picking it no question. I’ve been waiting for a Water/Poison starter line for a really long time and I think it’s either going to be Water/Poison or Water/Psychic, both of which I’d be okay with. Just going off designs I could see Grass/Flying for the Rowlet clone and Fire/Fairy for the doggo.
 
Mario With Lasers said:
Inshallah the water gecko will become some Water/Poison cuntymon
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the line starting off like that points to it becoming more monstrous later which would also be funny, since all the similar mons that started serving in their final were not at all like that as a base form lol

AquaticPanic said:
I don't want the Angry Bird to be flying solely because I think it is hilarious that we have FIVE final evo bird starters and absolutely none of them are Flying. It would be so funny if it happens again
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my dream for the grass starter is pls game freak give me a fast grass/rock type pls god (other than ogerpon)
 
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Mario With Lasers said:
Inshallah the water gecko will become some Water/Poison cuntymon
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GecquaSalazzle.png
 
I'm gonna be honest... I'm just not huge on these guys. Pombon sure, I do think its pretty cute. But Browt feels... inert, in a sense. It almost feels like a fakemon, and usually that feeling subsides for me after like a few hours but for this guy... something about it I just can't.

And Gecqua... it's not just me that thinks it looks like a Littlest Pet Shop toy right?

but by and large... IK these aren't designed by the original designers anymore, but they feel less and less in place with the world of Pokemon.

I'm not gonna be buying this anytime soon, I've no money for a Switch 2 XD but I think this is one of the most disappointing starter sets I've seen. I hope the final evos warm'em up to me, bc as it stands I honestly fear a repeat of Gen 8 (imo the weakest starter set).
 
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