Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were recently announced, and based on what we know about the games so far, there’s plenty to be excited about, not least because the duo represents the series’ first foray into a fully seamless open world experience. If, however, you were hoping to catch ’em all – as in every single Pokemon to date – in the upcoming RPGs- well, you might not be able to.
While it has been confirmed that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will support Pokemon HOME, thus allowing players to port in their pocket pals from other games in the series, it seems there will be caveats to that. As spotter by Serebii, each version of the game will seemingly feature support for only certain Pokemon species, which means not every single Pokemon species in existence right now will be coded into each of the two games. In case you’re wondering, as it stands right now, there are 898 different Pokemon species- though depending on how and what you count, that number can climb to a little over 900.
While this may be disappointing to many, it doesn’t come as a surprise at this point. Pokemon Sword and Shield were the first games in the series to cut what’s known as the National Dex, and that kicked up quite the controversy at the time.
Game Freak stood by its decision to do so nonetheless, explaining that supporting every single Pokemon species has become increasingly complicated as time has gone on, owing to just how many of them there are- and especially because that number keeps climbing. The developers also previously said that though species cut from Sword and Shield would return eventually, the trend of Pokedex cuts would still continue in future Pokemon games.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will launch for the Nintendo Switch later this year, though a specific release date hasn’t yet been announced.