An extended trailer for Pokémon Pokopia has offered a deep dive into the upcoming Animal Crossing-like life sim, and a curious first-look at some all-new Pokémon designs.
The start of the game will see you help out an original character, Professor Tangrowth, who seems to be Pokopia’s main quest giver. This looks to be a unique-colored Tangrowth in an outfit, rather than a new regional form.
Weirder still, however, are a ghostly pale version of regular Pikachu, and a mossy Snorlax that has a pale flower growing out of his head. Again, these are not specified to be new regional forms, but the trailer deliberately leaves it unclear exactly what these new designs are meant to suggest.
Over on the freshly-updated Pokémon Pokopia website, these creatures are given character names, though still appear to be based on the species’ regular forms. For example, “Mosslax” is described thus: “Moss has grown all over this Snorlax, and a flower sways atop its head. How long has it been asleep?”
Amid the ruins of an old town, Prof Tangrowth and other creatures soon give your main character quests to tame the world’s landscape using Pokémon abilities, create new environments to attract more Pokémon, and so on.
Once you’re up and running, multiple Pokémon can work together on more complicated projects, such as building houses and other ameneties like fountains.
As well as copying other Pokémon abilities (Water Gun from Squirtle, for example, to water plants), you can fully transform into a couple of species to help you travel around quicker. You can surf by transforming into Lapra, and fly by transforming into Dragonite, for example.
Multiplayer for up to four people is supported, as is GameShare — allowing you to play with others who don’t have the game themselves on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
Earlier this week, Nintendo confirmed Pokémon Pokopia’s March 5, 2026 release date and surprised fans by revealing it would be the first Nintendo-published game physically released via Switch 2 Game-Key card.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
