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This morning was wonderful for some Pokemon fans as The Pokemon Company International and Nintendo held its first Pokemon Direct of the year. A few days before The Pokemon Company tweeted they were hosting a direct, sending fans into a frenzy trying to speculate what was going to be showcased.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

The Pokemon Direct opened up with a surprise by announcing a new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game coming to the Switch called Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX. Why is this so exciting? Well, we have not seen a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game since Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon for the Nintendo 3DS in 2015. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a dungeon crawling adventure where you have miraculously turned into a Pokemon and have forgotten all of your human memories.

Not knowing how you arrived in a world of Pokemon, you befriend a Pokemon and form a rescue team. You traverse dungeons, completing jobs and being the best Pokemon rescue team there is. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX will be available on March 6th, 2020 for the Nintendo Switch, but you can play a demo of the game today.

Pokemon Sword and Shield

From experiencing the story and filling the Pokedex to raiding Pokemon dens for rare Pokemon,and training Pokemon for competitive battling, Pokemon Sword and Shield dropped last November and everyone is playing it. That said, once you get to endgame, there isn’t much to do if you’ve completed the Pokedex. Don’t fret, Sword and Shield will be getting an expansion pass with two major DLCs: The Isle of Armor (June 2020) and The Crown Tundra (Fall 2020).

Both expansions will take your character to new cities and biomes, and you’ll get to experience new Pokemon and there are so many coming to the Galar region. That said, I am excited about the new legendary pokemon that they showed off as well as the new Gigantimax forms. Some notable mentions are a Gigantimax Venusaur and Galar Region Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres.

A brief recap on the Dynamax feature, currently available in Sword and Shield is Gigantimax Charizard – so fingers crossed we can get Gigantimax Blastoise. If you’re new to Pokemon and don’t know a lot about the newest titles, Dynamaxing and Gigantimaxing are the ability to enlarge your Pokemon in battle and using special moves. Gigantimax Pokemon have a different form when they Dynamax. These Pokemon are considered rare and extremely sought after.

The added bonus to the expansion pass is that even if you’re late to the party purchasing the expansion, you can still acquire the plethora of Pokemon from it via trading with your friends. You can pre-purchase the expansion for your respective game version in the Nintendo eShop on your Nintendo Switch for $29.99 USD.

Pokemon Home

While Pokemon Sword and Shield was the meat of the 20 minute Pokemon Direct, we were informed that Pokemon Home would be releasing in February 2020. Pokemon Home is similar to the Nintendo 3DS’ Pokemon Bank where you can store your Pokemon in the cloud and transfer certain Pokemon to different games. Now, it will be a paid service but my speculation is it will be yearly like Pokemon Bank was.

For one of my favorite games, this is amazing news and definitely something to look forward to this new year. This is the first time Pokemon has done DLC. In the past, The Pokemon Company would release a third copy of the game at full price to experience more stories and obtain new Pokemon. I am happy that we are getting twice the content for half the price of the base game.

What did you think of the Direct? What are you most excited about from all the news announced today? Let us know via social media today!