Pokémon Home Set for February Launch

Rejoice, trainers: We finally have more information on Nintendo’s illustrious cloud service, Pokémon Home, including its launch date. You can expect to return to all your sad, abandoned Pokémon wasting away in Pokémon Bank in February. The service functions as an app for mobile platforms (iOS and Android compatible) and functions as a bridge between several Pokémon titles, including the new Pokémon Sword and Shield, 2018’s Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon Let’s Go, Eevee!, and the storage service Pokémon Bank, which allows for wide depositing and withdrawing of ‘mons from Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, and every other mainline Pokémon title for 3DS. Whew.

Pokémon Home builds upon the precedent set by Pokémon Bank, functioning as a hub (or boxes, to use Game Freak terminology) where Pokémon can move between the franchise’s different titles. That means soon all the Pokémon you’ve been saving since you were, say, 10 years old all the way back on the GameBoy Advance can soon join you on your adventures in the Pokémon Sword and Shield DLC adventures coming out soon. As you deposit more and more Pokémon, you’ll accumulate “Pokémon Home points,” which can be exchanged for BP, an in-game currency, in the core Pokémon games.