A ‘cosy’ farm/life sim with a Pokémon skin was always inevitable, and in fact I’m sure most folks are with me in their surprise that it’s taken this long. But this is without a doubt the one franchise able to come into a popular genre well past its saturation point and still cut through. So when Nintendo invited us to visit them and play a little over an hour of Pokémon Pokopia, I jumped on the opportunity to finally see what sort of experience this thing is aiming for.
The answer, which the involvement of Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force probably could have clued me in on, is that this is less Animal Crossing and more Dragon Quest Builders. And that’s exciting.
The similarities begin right from the game’s broad plot, by dropping players into a worst-case version of a world and tasking them with setting things right through the wonder of creation. In Pokopia, this means waking up on a once-bustling island that was home to humans and Pokémon alike, but is now nothing more than ruins, desolate land and a single, lonely Pokémon – Professor Tangrowth. Oh, and, you’re also a Ditto doing its best human impression.
The goal of the game then, at least as far as my brief time with it implied, is to slowly rebuild and cultivate the land in order to bring back some life to the place and repopulate it with Pokémon , while learning more about what happened to the humans – including Ditto’s trainer. Our preview kicked us off right from the beginning of the game, so it was all about learning the basics of restoring, crafting and attracting new Pokémon residents.
It all starts with habitats, which are crucial to finding new Pokémon. The right habitat, something as simple as a patch of tall grass or as specific as a punching bag arranged next to a wooden bench, can attract different types of Pokémon. And the more types you befriend, the more options you’ll have to create your environment. Some Pokémon you’ll be able to beckon over to help you with a task using their unique abilities, while others offer you whole new Ditto transformations so that you can use their moves on the fly.
These essentially take the place of the gradual collection of tools you’d find in a survival sim to help you better collect resources or manipulate the natural world. Only here you’re using classic moves like Cut, Water Gun and Leafage. Use of these is dictated by a PP meter, but it drains slowly enough that it never became too annoying to quickly chomp down a berry or something and keep going about my landscaping duties. That said, my limited time was laser-focused on discovering as many Pokemon habitats as I could to make new friends, so I do wonder how laborious the tile-by-tile, stamina-restricted work could get if you’re thinking of bigger projects.
You won’t just stop at growing the Pokémon population either, as it’s up to you to make your new friends comfortable and continue to raise the profile of the environment. A lot of this is filtered through a challenge system, where preset and daily goals encourage further growth through busywork and reward you with access to new decorations, habitat clues and such. I get the sense there’ll be a much softer narrative hand here versus something like Builders, but if you crave structure in your cosy games like I do, it seems like there’ll be enough.
The biggest source of charm throughout my demo of Pokopia was all of the dialogue coming from my new Pokémon friends, because, like the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, you and your fellow ‘mons can fully communicate. I do wonder how this idea fits in with the historical existence of humans in the same world, but that mystery aside, the writing on display is an expected delight.
During our preview there was also limited time to check out the game in a multiplayer session, though the short, dropped-in sample didn’t do a lot to make sense of how the feature works. Myself and the other media that were grouped up just sorta dicked around, seeing whether we could hit each other with Pokemon moves and building cursed junk together. It seems like the standard hang-out potential you’d find in one of these games.
What it did do is give me access to some more advanced Pokémon and transformations, including the ability to surf and ‘fly’ via my Ditto’s attempts at Lapras and Dragonite. To say I lost my mind at the way both of these look, complete with them keeping whatever hat you were wearing equipped, would be a severe understatement:
It’s kinda difficult to properly demo a game like Pokémon Pokopia, the kind of game that burns slow and demands a considerable time investment to show its true colours. But getting my hands on this small slice has me completely confident in its ability to charm Pokémon fans and invite creativity from players of all ages. I’ll be making a habit(at) out of this one for sure.
Pokémon Pokopia releases on Switch 2 on March 5, 2026.
Previewed on Switch 2 at an event hosted by Nintendo Australia.
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