In May 2019, Game Freak officially revealedPokemon Home, a cloud-based Pokemon storage service that may remind some players of the Nintendo 3DS’sPokemon Bank. While Game Freak has not shared many details onPokemon Homesince its announcement last year, the developer did provide a release window for the service during theJanuary 9, 2020PokemonDirect.
Specifically, it was revealed that thePokemon Homerelease date is currently planned for February 2020. While an exact day was not provided, this release window means that fans do not have to wait much longer before getting their hands on this new Pokemon storage solution. This is likely to be exciting news to many players, asPokemon Bank, which was initially released back in 2013 and ties Pokemon storage to a specific console, may be feeling slightly out of date at this point.
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For the uninitiated,Pokemon Homewill allow players to transfer their Pokemon fromPokemon Bank,Pokemon GO,Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu!andLet’s Go, Eevee!, andPokemon SwordandShieldinto a unified, cloud-based storage system. From there, fans can then transfer Pokemon fromPokemon HomeintoPokemon SwordandShield,effectively allowing them to bring their favorite pocket monsters from previous generations into these new games.
That said, not every Pokemon that can be stored inPokemon Homecan currently be taken intoSwordandShield, as only those that are featured on theGalar Pokedexare available for transfer. Indeed, the Galar Pokedex does not contain every Pokemon from across the franchise’s many generations, a fact that proved quite controversial when it was revealed last year, and that means that many pocket monsters will be trapped inPokemon Homefor the time being.
However, alongside the announcement ofPokemon Home’s release window, Game Freak also revealed that more than 200 old Pokemon are set to be added toPokemon SwordandShield. This will occur as part of thePokemon SwordandShieldExpansion Pass, which is comprised of two major content updates that will release over the course of 2020, and thus it seems that the number of Pokemon that players will be able to transfer fromPokemon Homeis greater than initially expected.
Pokemon Homewill release in February 2020 for iOS and Android devices.
