Pokémon Pokopia has been a hit on Nintendo Switch 2, and its ongoing events are keeping players glued to it. One especially dedicated player has been working on a recreation of the first-generation Kanto map with Pokopia’s Minecraft-like tools, and they’re almost finished now.
Pokémon Pokopia actually takes place in parts of the Kanto region after an unspecified amount of time has passed and honours the series’ origins, so this ambitious build was already heavily expected. But still, rebuilding the original blocky map from scratch sounded like a daunting endeavour due to the study of the original map and the measuring and planning involved to fit everything inside the Pallet Town map.
Reddit user starguy13 shared their early work back in March, but it wasn’t until last month they shared more extensive progress, focusing on getting many routes and towns right. Even if the Pallet Town map is huge, the initial placement of landmarks proved to be troublesome, as the goal was to connect the full Kanto region.
Starguy13’s latest update offers more in depth comments: “Surprised I could fit all the cities and towns in the Pallet Town maps, though I had to cut quite a few routes and squish a few cities. If I had to do this again I would start with route 22 at the far western boundary.” Regardless, Kanto is looking impressive in this re-remastered form. Thanks to the correct use of building blocks and even the game’s own prefabricated buildings, there’s a great resemblance.
As revealed before the game’s launch, Pokopia was actually born from senior director Shigeru Ohmori’s experience working on Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire’s level design, so there’s a clear throughline shared to the old Pokémon games. How long will it be before someone starts working on a Johto or Hoenn build as detailed as this one?
