Pokémon Pokopia Trailer Confirms It’s a Game Key Card Release

By Catherine Masters | November 13, 2025 | 1:30pm

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Pokémon Pokopia Trailer Confirms It’s a Game Key Card Release

An extended trailer for Omega Force’s upcoming crafting sim Pokémon Pokopia was released today, alongside the official confirmation that the game will only be sold physically as a Game Key Card after a trailer featured it as one earlier this week. The game is set to be released on March 5, 2026 and will also be available through the eshop.

The trailer showed early parts of the game with Professor Tangrowth meeting a Ditto that has transformed into a humanoid shape and tasking them with restoring the area. Pokémon will appear from tall grass and join your troupe, some teaching you moves to help with traversal and the restoration. The game appears to play much like the studio’s excellent Dragon Quest Builders series, with a similar blocky world and world-repairing mission. Also teased were some variants on classic Pokémon likely related to the game’s story, like the extremely deep sleeper Mosslax.

Game Key Cards are a format Nintendo created for the Switch 2 that offers publishers a cheaper alternative to the 64GB physical cartridge. Instead of having all or any of a game’s data on the card, the Game Key Cards are blank. When inserting one into a Switch 2 for the first time, the console will connect to the internet and download the title to its internal storage. To be able to play the game, players will need to insert the cartridge even though it is wholly a digital download.

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Having to insert a disc to play an installed game isn’t new, but rarely are PS5 and Xbox Series games reliant on an internet connection, instead copying data from the disc. Indeed, it has been noteworthy when recent Xbox titles have been sold with blank discs that work just like Game Key Cards. Although the install size of some Game Key Card titles like Hitman World of Assassination – Signature Edition’s 60GB can prove tricky to juggle, the crux of the issue is Game Key Cards’ reliance on access to Nintendo’s servers to be able to initially access the game. When the servers eventually shut down or if someone simply does not have an internet connection, the Game Key Cards are not worth the plastic they’re printed on. It is worth noting that people can still access their Wii Shop purchases from decades ago, but nothing is eternal.

Many fans have been vocal about their disdain for the format, opting to avoid even buying the digital editions of games with Game Key Card releases to “support physical,” but the release of a game published by Nintendo (outside of Japan) may signal the company shifting more towards the format sooner than expected. Although some are worried about preservation when it comes to Game Key Cards, every 3DS eshop and physical title is currently archived and possible to obtain digitally, albeit illegitimately.

Without physical options for games, consumers are entirely reliant on the prices set by the console manufacturers and publishers. One positive aspect of Game Key Cards is that they are able to be sold second-hand or traded between people, with myself having bought a Japanese copy of Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut below the asking price thanks to the physical option.

With The Pokémon Company choosing to publish the game as a Game Key Card in Japan (seemingly to cut costs for the world’s most profitable franchise) and Nintendo following suit internationally, Pokémon Pokopia is sadly overshadowed for many by the format it is being released as. Although this is not exactly a “Nintendo-developed title” using the format, it still gives consumers some concern for their options down the line and even for the next mainline Pokémon game.