Pokemon Champions release date & details

Back in the last Pokemon Day, we were told that Pokemon Champions, an upcoming title in the franchise, was set to be released in April 2026 for Nintendo consoles. Well, ready your Switches, because it’s been given an exact release date: 8 April.

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Bring in your existing squad to Pokemon Champions

The pitch for Champions is pretty straightforward; it’s a free-to-play online battler, where you fight other trainers with your Pokemon. It brings to mind Pokemon Showdown, the most popular fan-made online battle sim, though Champions is made to reach players who are more embedded in the mainstream Pokemon ecosystem.

That’s because the Pokemon Home cloud system is a core component of Champions. Via Home, you can withdraw the Pokemon you’ve recruited across multiple titles and connect them to use in Champions.

Supported games include Scarlet and Violet, Legends Z-A and Arceus, as well as Pokemon Go. An important note, though: only Pokemon supported by Champions can be used in the game (the full list of supported Pokemon has not been published so far).

Thanks to this recruitment method, your team will mostly consist of Pokemon you’ve already trained, at least to start with. But before you can put those hundreds of hours in Scarlet to good use, do note that like pretty much every other cloud service, you’ll need to pay to get the most out of it; a free Basic plan only gives you a maximum of 30 Pokemon that can be deposited into Home, while a Premium plan gives you 6,000. Pricing for the plans can be found here.

But Home isn’t the only way to get Pokemon for Champions. You can also recruit Pokemon within Champions itself, though there are a few caveats; at the start you’ll get a random selection of Pokemon every day, and you can only pick one to recruit. And even then, those Pokemon can only be used for a week. But there are ways to get around this the more you play.

Victory Points, Battle Modes and Mega Evolutions

Champions will allow you to recruit more than one Pokemon a day, and even add them permanently to your collection. This is primarily done via Victory Points (VP), the game’s XP system.

You’ll need VP to do pretty much everything in this game. Apart from getting around the in-game recruitment limitations, VP will also allow you to train your Pokemon, via stat upgrades and swapping learned moves, and it acts as a currency for the in-game cosmetics and items shop.

Luckily though, VP is pretty easy to come across, as it’s rewarded after each battle. They’re not directly purchasable either, though this doesn’t mean Champions is free from in-game purchases; like most online games now, players can purchase premium Battle Passes for added rewards, on top of the regular Battle Pass.

Those added rewards include Mega Stones, as well as Quick Coupons and Teammate Tickets; the latter two are alternative ways to temporarily and permanently recruit Pokemon in Champions.

There’s also a Pokemon Champions + Starter Pack bundle which will be available at launch. The Starter Pack will come with some minor benefits, including a new battle track and additional Pokemon storage space, according to this translation from the Pokemon Global News fanpage. 

Finally, Champions also includes a series of Battle Modes. It’s the usual fare for an online game like this – a ranked mode, a casual mode and private rooms for battles with friends. There will also be online competitions with specific rulesets, which will change every season, and battles can be conducted either in Singles or Doubles as well.

Finally, seeing as Pokemon Legends Z-A is the most recent high-profile Pokemon game to be released, Champions will also support some of Z-A’s new Mega Evolutions. These include Mega Meganium, Mega Emboar, Mega Feraligatr, as well as Mega Dragonite.

As mentioned, Pokemon Champions will be free-to-play, and will come to Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on 8 April, the latter console getting graphical upgrades. We’re still missing information on one key aspect of Champions, however: the mobile versions. Currently, we only have a release window for when it’ll come to Android and iOS, that being Summer 2026.