Pokémon Sword and Shield will no longer by supported with new content following their final update on November 1.
As reported by Serebii.net, The Pokémon Company is pulling back support for the previous mainline entries as the new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are due to be released on November 18.
One final Wild Area News event on November 1 – which had previously taken place roughly once a month – will bring new Pokémon to the games that weren’t previously available, including Gigantamax Snorlax. This event will continue until the online services for Sword and Shield are shut down completely, but this will likely still be years away.
The Battle Stadium will no longer update with a ranked season on the same day, and the results of the Ranked Battle Season will therefore no longer appear in Pokémon Home. While it’s not yet confirmed, The Pokémon Company will likely include results from Scarlet and Violet’s ranked seasons here instead.
No further official online competitions will take place either, but friendly competitions can still be hosted. Again, results from competitions will no longer appear in Pokémon Home. Other online functionality such as friendly battles and trading will continue as normal.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will take the mantle for most of these competitive events, though it’s still unclear if the Wild Area News events will have a direct replacement in the new games.
Unlike Sword and Shield’s open levels, however, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are full-on open world games for the first time in franchise history. It will present players with three major stories to follow in any order, and the map can even be traversed using the two legendary Pokémon (which double as motorbikes).
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.