It’s been a weirdly long time since we had any significant Pokemon news. It might not feel like it, because Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket is still shiny and new, but the last Pokemon Presents was on Pokemon Day last year, and the reveals at the Pokemon World Championship last August were pretty low-key. There’s a major new Pokemon game coming out this year that we haven’t seen a single trailer for, and beyond that, we know very little about what’s happening in the world of Pokemon in 2025.
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The air of mystery around this year’s Pokemon Day is leading me to expect big things, and I have a few predictions about what we might get to see on February 27th.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A
The headliner of the showcase will undoubtedly be Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The second Legends title was announced during Pokemon Day last year, and since then we haven’t received a single new detail about it. I expect we’ll see an extended trailer as well as a narrated gameplay sequence going over some of the game’s biomes, mechanics, and new Pokemon.
According to rumors, Z-A will be released for the Switch, with no significant upgrades when played on the Switch 2. I’m hoping this isn’t true, since Pokemon Legends: Arceus felt severely held back by the aging Switch hardware, but I’m hoping Game Freak learned a lot from Arceus (and Scarlet & Violet, which followed it by a few months) and has significantly improved its approach to open-world and level design for Z-A. I’ve been getting my hopes up (and crushed) by Pokemon games for 25 years, no sense in stopping now.
Pokemon Unite 2 And Pokemon Auto Chess
As one of the last remaining fans of Pokemon Unite, I’m particularly interested to see what kind of announcements we’ll hear about the mobile MOBA on Pokemon Day. China has been enjoying a new and extremely improved version of Unite since late last year, so there’s some hope that those upgrades will make their way to the global version in 2025.
The Chinese version of the game has a bunch of new features, including a Splatoon-style social hub, totally reinvented competitive mode, and even an autobattler. I’ve been begging for Pokemon Auto Chess for years, and now that it exists, I’m dying to see it released globally. Pokemon Day would be the perfect place to announce it.
Trainer’s Pokemon Cards and The New Team Rocket Set
The TCG typically isn’t part of the Pokemon Day showcase, but this is an especially big year for the card game. We’ve already had an incredibly hyped set with Prismatic Evolutions, but some upcoming sets might be even more high profile.
The return of trainer’s Pokemon cards was announced at the World Championship last year and we still haven’t seen them, and we’re also waiting for the announcement of the new Team Rocket set, which was recently leaked. Both sets will have big time nostalgia value, and I hope they get some love during Pokemon Day.
Pokemon TCG Pocket
The one TCG game we can definitely expect to see is Pokemon TCG Pocket. At a minimum we’ll get an announcement for a new in-game event and a look at a promo card or two, but hopefully we’ll also get a teaser for the next sub-set that will follow Space-Time Smackdown.
The future of Pocket is incredibly bright, and I’m hoping to see an announcement that it will be a featured title at the next World Championship. Pokemon Day might not be the right time to talk about competitive Pokemon, but I expect Pocket to be a pillar of Pokemon going forward.
An Unannounced Game
While Pokemon Legends: Z-A will most certainly take the spotlight, I’m still staying open to the possibility that we get a new game announcement on Pokemon Day as well. There are multiple new Pokemon games almost every year (except 2024), and we only know of one that’s coming in 2025.
At the top of my eternal Pokemon wishlists sits Pokken Tournament 2, Pokemon Conquest 2, and Pokemon Snap 3, but some of the best Pokemon spin-offs are the ones you’d never expect, like Pocket and Unite. We’re also due for a remake, which could mean we’ll see a reveal of new versions of Black & White. Z-A won’t be a Switch 2 game, but we might see a different Pokemon game announced for Switch 2.
This is a rare situation where it’s impossible for a video game showcase to disappoint me. The worst case scenario is that all we get is an extended look at Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and even if that were the case, I’d still be excited to see it. Pokemon Day is February 27, and it can’t get here fast enough.
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo, The Pokemon Company