The Pokémon Company is already considering a future where the total number of pocket monsters available hits “maybe 10,000.”
At the time of writing, the Pokémon franchise extends to 1,025 species — including the three new starter creatures already unveiled for next year’s Switch 2 games Pokémon Winds and Waves. That’s a lot, though that total rises far further if you include the series’ various form differences, regional variants, Gigantamax species and Mega Evolutions.
Keeping track of all these differences and balancing them all appropriately has proven a near-impossible challenge, which is why modern mainline Pokémon games only include a subset of the series’ total in each entry.
In Pokémon Champions, the franchise’s new PVP battle platform set to be used in all competitive tournaments going forward, developers will handle this situation differently — by offering a rotating selection of creatures available to all players, with new species replacing others in the roster over time.
“Our plan right now is to have that kind of change over time, so the meta game or the Pokémon that are available at any given time to be used may be different as time goes on,” producer Masaaki Hoshino said in a group interview attended by GamesRadar+. “We’re planning to keep Pokémon Champions going far into the future – basically forever, as long as the Pokémon series is continuing.
“And who knows? Far in the future, we’ll have 2,000, 3,000, maybe 10,000 Pokémon,” Hoshino continued. “If we had all of those available to be played, I think it would just become such a complicated situation. So I think the idea that we have right now is only a limited selection available, but shifting over time.”
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Each Pokémon generation adds roughly 100 new species, meaning that the series’ menagerie will likely swell to over 1,100 unique creatures in 2027, when Pokémon Winds and Waves are set to be released. How long will it take to hit 2,000 — or 10,000? If it took 26 years for Pokémon to pass the 1,000 milestone, players should expect it to hit 2,000 by 2048 if things continue at the same pace, and 10,000 species by the mid 2200s.
Like the Stadium games of old, Pokémon Champions is a turn-based battle game that allows you to import Pokémon you’ve caught elsewhere and command them in battles. It will launch on April 8 for Switch consoles, with a smartphone release still planned for later this year. At launch, a paid-for Starter Pack will allow you to store more Pokémon (an additional 50) and receive a smattering of other extras.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
