I’m already hyped for Pokémon’s 30th anniversary in 2026, and most of us who are fans of the series know this will probably be a big year for the series. While the Pokémon Company has yet to confirm what’s coming next year, it’s reasonable to expect that sometime later in 2025, we will get news of games coming in 2026.
This will likely include a fresh mainline Pokémon game, which will most likely be a Switch 2 exclusive that will make me pay the console tax. I’m sure of that because of the anniversary, and also because it lines up with the release cadence of previous generations, which have never been released later than four years after the previous one. Generation 9 debuted in late 2022, after all.
This could be the start of Generation 10 of Pokémon, which means a new game with a different region and a unique set of monsters. While this alone is exciting for me, since I’ve been playing Pokémon for what I think is already 25 years, I still have the dream of seeing the Pokémon Company release an MMORPG.
I want a Pokémon world that’s connected
It’s not about online gaming. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet already have decent online features: battling other players, exploring the map together in the Union Circle, and PvE battles in Tera Raids. It’s a comprehensive experience that lets you join players you don’t know, randomly queuing up with or against you. While it’s still far from having a clan or guild system like long-standing MMOs have, it’s more than Pokémon had before the Nintendo Switch era.
I want a Pokémon MMO so I can see an ever-expanding world with updates over the years. The dream that probably anyone who has played more than two mainline Pokémon games has: starting in the Kanto region, and after six months or a year, unlocking Johto, then other regions until we have a 10- or 15-year-old game where we can play as one trainer across the entire Pokémon world, traveling from region to region, fighting different gyms and Elite Fours. Essentially, a single title would feature all the games and continents ever released in the franchise.
That’s even more exciting to me than the multiplayer aspect, though it would only truly shine if there were lots of players active at the same time. I’m not a game designer, so I won’t try to say what the best way to achieve this could be. I do think one of the hardest challenges would be figuring out how to make that much content work with Pokémon’s usual leveling system. But MMOs like World of Warcraft have figured out how to keep leveling interesting while still releasing new content without extreme level-cap increases.
Maybe The Pokémon Company could create some kind of IV or EV upgrades, increase their caps, and add farming systems. I believe, or would like to believe, that there’s a solution for this. There are thousands of talented developers, level and character designers out there who could make it happen if the Pokémon Company hired them. After all the recent layoffs across Microsoft and other companies, I can only imagine there are plenty of skilled people available to build a Pokémon MMO.
The Pokémon Company has surprised us before
The only obstacle is the Pokémon Company itself. But they have surprised us and experimented successfully with other genres: a MOBA in Pokémon Unite, a gacha in Pokémon Masters EX, augmented reality in Pokémon GO, tactics in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, tile-matching in Pokémon Trozei, and even a fighting game in Pokkén Tournament DX. Yet, despite the franchise’s roots as an RPG, it never came close to being an MMO.
The main historical barrier was hardware/ How could you make an MMO for the Game Boy Color, DS, or 3DS? Nintendo also has no games on PC. But now, with the Nintendo Switch, we’ve even seen Temtem, a Pokémon-inspired MMO, run on the platform, so we know it’s possible.
The bigger issue might be that Nintendo has never made any MMOs, and these games require high maintenance, investment, and ongoing updates. That’s very different from the live service they’ve done for Pokémon Unite (designing a few ‘mon occasionally) or Pokémon Masters EX (adding sync pairs, stories, and side missions). Expanding an MMO means building entire world expansions, huge undertakings that can fundamentally change how the game works. Nintendo doesn’t have that experience.
So I don’t think it will happen. Still, I think I can dream, right? I’d love to see this become a reality someday. And who knows, maybe in a few months, I’ll be writing the news that there’s a Pokémon MMO… and then I’ll wake up and realize it was just a dream.
