90) Pokémon: Pokopia (2026)

Originally conceived during the development of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet by director Shigeru Ohmori, Pokopia draws heavily from his earliest work in the series as a map designer for Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire. Feeling as though the idea of creating their own Pokémon habitats would be appealing for fans, he further developed the idea as a spinoff title as a new approach to the franchise. Lacking the experience of working on sandbox games, Game Freak enlisted the aid of Koei Tecmo's Omega Force studio, who had previously work on Dragon Quest Builders 2. Announced in September of 2025, the game released in March of 2026 as the franchise's first exclusive title for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Set in a post apocalyptic version of the original Kanto region, a sentence I never dared think I'd get to type, the game begins as a lone Pokéball descends into a cave, spawning, of all things, a Ditto. The Ditto chooses to take a form resembling its trainer, thus allowing us to customize our character and establishing that this will indeed be our avatar in the game. We soon meet a Pokémon that identifies itself as Professor Tangrowth who explains that he's been searching fruitlessly for other Pokémon and humans, all of whom have disappeared. Leaving the cave, we get a better sense of what has happened in this world, as buildings lay in ruin, overtaken by nature, and the land is in a state of ruin.

The story, as it turns out, is that an unspecified amount of time ago, the humans of the world were unable to do anything to prevent a series of devastating meteorological phenomena that apparently wreaked havoc on every single region of the Pokémon world. The plan, as we find in various notes, was for humans to go to space until things calmed down, placing all Pokémon into the electronic storage the series is known for. As a fail safe in case of system failure, the storage system was designed to release the Pokémon if a suitable habitat for them became available. That's right, the entire plot seems to have been lifted from the Pixar film Wall-E, though I can't say that I mind as I genuinely love that film.

Utilizing their experience working on Dragon Quest Builders 2, the game plays much the same, which is to say it's a glorified version of Minecraft with Pokémon slapped on it. That's not to diminish the game in any way, but the similarities are pretty clear. It combines this clear inspiration with a dash of Animal Crossing, as you find and befriend new Pokémon, they give you quests and ask for different favors. The loop of creating environments and homes to attract new monsters, learning new skills from the Pokémon you've befriended which allows you to build even more and varied environments is as addictive as a cross between Minecraft, Animal Crossing, and Pokémon sounds. It's very easy to fall into the trap of doing just one more thing, only to learn that it opens up new ways to interact with the world so obviously you need to play a little longer.

Bolstering all of this is a fairly commonsense way in which the world reacts to your efforts. Though lacking gravity for physical objects, meaning you can have blocks suspended in the air, water reacts in the way you expect, and it's fun to change or open up the flow to create rivers. Trees and flowers can be planted or found, and if they look barren, a quick shot of water will revive them. The only small complaint I have is in regards to the pathing some of the Pokémon display, with small obstacles hindering them far more than it should. This rarely was a real issue, and was all the more incentive to shape the world to suit my needs.

As we play, the game slowly introduces new mechanics and a total of four separate biomes in which we can explore, craft, and befriend new Pokémon. In addition to well over 200 familiar faces, there are a handful of unique Pokémon that are tied to the main story. A moss covered Snorlax and a Rotom inhabiting a sound system are only a couple of examples, and I'm interested to see if these unique creatures ever show up in a mainline title. If nothing else, I genuinely hope the models used in the game, along with the adorable artstyle, transition to the main titles, as this is genuinely the best that the series has ever looked.

Carrying all of this is the writing. While not every Pokémon has a wholly unique personality or story, they're all charmingly written with more than a few jokes thrown in. Some of which surprised me with how on the nose they were, and there were more than a few times I swear they referenced things I'd never expect to see referenced in Pokémon. Half of the fun of doing the quests is just seeing how Pokémon interact with one another and seeing the dialogue that explains why a Ditto has to be the one doing everything.

Pokémon: Pokopia is an amazing casual experience that can easily eat hours of your life if you allow it to. The world is genuinely fun to explore and interact with, the music is nostalgic and relaxing, and everything comes off as charming without being overly saccharine. The underlying plot of a world ravaged by nature, leaving us in a post apocalyptic landscape, is far more mature than I'd ever expect from an official Pokémon game, but it's handled in such an accessible and cute way that it's easy to forget just how messed up it is. Ditto, long since made a meme in the Pokémon community for the disturbing implications of its shapeshifting, serves as the perfect lead for a game about transforming the world around us. Pokopia is an easy casual game to recommend, and easily the best Pokémon game in recent years. A hopeful bright spot that shows how enduring the brand is, and hopefully leads to even more experimentation in the future.