Game 11 of 2026 is Pokemon Pokopia

Game 11 of 2026 is Pokemon Pokopia

cute… lovely… smart… plus… amazing… you think so?… oh yes…it… stunning… kindly… love it! Hug it…when… sleeping…

What a delightful game!

Mixing Pokemon with Animal Crossing and Dragon Quest Builders and apparently Viva Pinata (not that I’ve played that one) is a great idea that just works so well. Fulfilling requests, improving habitats, and making new friends all gently fill the time, giving the game a light breeziness. Each pokemon is cute and has personality, and building the world for them is a nice time.

But that cuteness hides a darkness.

With humanity gone, pokemon are confused. There’s a loss there, a deep mourning for what once was, and a wonder at the more esoteric practices humanity had. There is so much lost knowledge now that humans are no longer around, and the pokemon do their best to piece together what they can from their different elders.

We never experience the final days of humanity in person. We never face the chaotic end-times head-on. We never confront our end at our own hands. We see it through writings left behind, and the confusion that grief and loss brings in those who remain.

It’s a what if statement that feels more like a warning in this era of climate change and international strife than a hypothetical.

Pokopia is a deeply melancholy game, and a bizarrely affecting one considering its wrapping.

I wonder if our planet will miss us when we’re gone?

I do wish there were more pieces of furniture, and that customising them was easier. There are a few extra steps and additional friction that slows down the game — deliberately so — that I think could have lifted a little in post-game.

I would’ve liked more biomes. I think the beach/volcano/city/fields spread is okay, but no area feels truly large enough to build on. A snow environment, or a jungle or swamp would be great. And having more than one freeform building area would be much better — coupled with a way to easily terraform or set biomes for the building zones.

I think that’s my main criticism across the game. I would love more stuff. More areas. More pokemon. More items. More defined things to work towards. As it is, Pokopia pads out its runtime with grind and real time countdowns, and that can get a little tedious. The slow dripfeed of new stuff restricts your building palette until post-game, and by then I was ready to put it down.

The highlight for me is the music. Pokopia remixes familiar tracks in a way that’s full of whimsy and joy. It takes a minimalist approach, often stripping the tracks down to a few key melodic notes and motifs, riffing on the familiar parts while adding its own gentle, joyful twist. It’s masterful; both nostalgic and fresh, evoking a playful sense of childhood and the sadness that leaving it brings.

It looks appropriately colourful and clean, with a nice defined image not smeared into oblivion with upscaling. Fewer pixels more cleanly is what I like, and Pokopia delivers. Everything carries the Pokemon art design, but makes it work in this new environment and game design philosophy. It looks cute and charming and I really really like it.

I’m curious about which engine it’s running on. I assume it’s some form of Katana, since it’s Koei and Omega Force. I’m pretty sure DQ Builders 2 used Katana. It’s interesting since it runs so well, in dramatic contrast to the contemporaneous Nioh 3 and Fatal Frame 2 remake.

I haven’t tested the full limits of the building system yet. I’m curious on depth limits and what defines a house in game. I kind of want to build a pokemansion, but my design sensibilities are a bit boring for that. I don’t know how many mon can fit in a single structure too. It’s a little unexplained, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how obtuse the game is meant to be.

I’m only just into post-game now, with a pokedex of around 100 out of ~300ish. I also haven’t begun to build out Palette Town. I can’t see myself sinking heaps of time into post-game, but it might be a nice casual time filler game to come back to every now and then.

I really liked Pokopia. It’s the freshest take on Pokemon we’ve had since Arceus, and it nails everything it wants to perfectly. It brings back the childhood joy of Pokemon and plonks it into a melancholy world of wonder and possibility. I wish there were more things to discover (a cold biome would be great) and more directed experiences, but no Pokemon game since the first few has been so delightful to explore anew.