Pokémon Home will add support for Pokémon Legends: Arceus as well as Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in the coming weeks with update 2.0.0. With the new update, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be mutually compatible with Pokémon Sword and Shield, allowing Pokémon to be moved freely between them using the Pokémon Home app, albeit with changes to their movesets.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will join a complex ecosystem that also includes Pokémon Go, Pokémon Let’s Go, and Pokémon transferred from the Nintendo 3DS games. The latter games, however, will continue to support only one-way transfers with Pokémon Home.
To illustrate the system, the official website included this handy infographic.
An infographic illustrating the complex relationship between the various Pokémon games.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are also giving away some freebies to celebrate the update. The first time players transfer a Pokémon from Legends: Arceus into Home, they’ll be given Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott with maximum effort levels as Mystery Gifts in the smartphone app version.
Transferring a Pokémon from Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, meanwhile, will earn players a Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup with Hidden Abilities.
Given that Pokémon Legends: Arceus is set in the distant past where certain types of Poké Balls from other games don’t exist yet, the update will also add “Strange Balls” to the Pokémon universe. Any Pokémon from one of the modern-day games will be switched into a Strange Ball when transferred to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Strange Balls will also appear in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl but not Sword and Shield.
The official release advises that transferring a Pokémon to a new game may cause changes to moves and levels. It’s unclear whether Pokémon currently unavailable in Sword and Shield, such as Chimchar, will be transferrable from the other two games.
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were released in November last year, with IGN saying in our 8/10 review: “Like the themes of [their story, the games] are solid and enduring – leaning on the past, with all of its triumphs and tripwires.”
With the spin-off launching a couple of months later, in our 7/10 review IGN said: “Pokémon Legends: Arceus is an ambitious revamp that successfully revolutionizes the defining Pokemon experiences of catching and battling, but is unfortunately set in a drab, empty, and at times tedious world.”
It also won’t be too long before Pokémon Home will need updating again as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were announced earlier this year, with a release date expected in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Correction: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect Pokémon Home’s updated compatibility.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.