Current Events > Another question about Pokemon SwSh DLC...

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When the DLC got announced people got all shitty about the returning Pokemon being locked behind a paywall, before other people clarified that the Pokemon would be added in a free update separate from the DLC. This claim was eventually countered with the assertion that the 200 returning Pokemon would be confined strictly to the DLC areas, and only made available via trading between DLC and vanilla versions of the game.

Did the Nintendo Direct ever state that the returning Pokemon would be tied to the DLC? Because while rebalancing the entire game to include the new Pokemon isn't feasible, SwSh could just as easily add the new Pokemon to the Wild Area and rebalance the spawns there. The different weather patterns spawn different Pokemon related to those weather patterns, and while those weather patterns have a decent crop of Pokemon dedicated to them per area, there's nothing saying that the Wild Area spawns have to stay consistent or that there isn't fat to be trimmed in regards to overlapping spawns. Game Freak could write it off as a "biome shift" or something that attracts new Pokemon.

If the Direct stated that the new areas are the exclusive home to returning Pokemon, that's one thing. It's a whole other thing entirely to assume the returning Pokemon won't be coming to the vanilla release due to spawn rates. The devs won't go out of their way to retcon the returning Pokemon into the wider Galar region, but without 100% confirmation it seems stupid to write off the Wild Area as a potential home for the returning Pokemon.

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The returning pokemon will only be catchable in the DLC maps. You can transfer the pokemon up through Home or trade them from someone who has them.

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I guess it'd make sense that this would be the case, given that they announced Home in the same Direct.

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