Pokemon Champions is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and the original Switch in April, but PAX East 2026 attendees will get a chance to play the game a little bit early. Pokemon Champions will essentially act like the Pokemon Stadium games on Nintendo 64, allowing players to participate in battles using their Pokemon from past games, but this time through the use of Pokemon Home. However, the game will still allow new players to recruit Pokemon on either a trial or permanent basis. Battles will be in the classic turn-based style, as opposed to the real-time battle system seen in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the two games currently used at competitive Pokemon events, but that will change starting this year. Pokemon Champions will be taking the place of mainline games at VGC events, such as the Pokemon World Championships. In a first for the series, Pokemon Champions will bring in multiple battle gimmicks from previous Pokemon generations; the first trailer showed a Mega Charizard X in battle against a Terastallized Dondozo. It seems that Mega Evolution will be getting the primary focus when the game launches, though. Pokemon Champions will be free-to-start, but...
