January 9, 2020

Pokémon Sword and Shield are getting downloadable expansions this year

If you’ve already completed your Pokédex and battled your way up to become the Champion of Galar, you might’ve figured you were just about done with Pokémon Sword/Shield.

Surprise! More is on the way — for a price, that is.

This morning Nintendo announced that it’s working on not one, but two downloadable expansions for Sword and Shield: The Isle of Armor (arriving June 2020) and The Crown Tundra (coming sometime “in the fall of 2020”). A $30 “Expansion Pass” that’s up for pre-order today gets you both downloads when they arrive.

While this definitely isn’t the first time Nintendo has dabbled with DLC, it is the first time they’ve done so with a main series Pokémon title. Considering that Sword/Shield is one of the best-selling Switch games of all time, it makes sense that Nintendo isn’t quite ready to be done with it.

So what’s new in the expansions?

Each pack will bring new areas to explore, along with new characters, storylines and, of course, Pokémon. Nintendo and GameFreak aren’t getting too specific about how many new Pokémon we’ll see, but do note that the expansions will include brand new monsters, Gigantamax and Galarian forms of existing ‘mon, plus support for an unspecified number of past Pokémon transferable from previous Pokémon titles.

While the expansions won’t ship for a few months, the companies are releasing what they call “a small slice” of the new stuff today via a free update.

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