Pokémon Sword and Shield will receive their final update early next month

Pokemon Sword and Shield say their final goodbyes next month as the two titles will receive their last update before the release of scarlet and violet.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to hear that Sword and Shield has only one final update on the way, this one scheduled for November 1st, as reported by Serebii.net. The latest update of The Wild Area News will add a number of Pokemon that are not normally available, such as Gigantamax Relaxo, marking this as the last update of Wild Area News in the game.

Battle Stadium will also no longer be updated with a ranked season starting November 1, and ranked battle season results will no longer appear in Pokémon Home, the pocket monster storage box app. Don’t expect any more online competitions either, as no more are planned, although friendly competitions can still take place, although these will no longer appear in Pokémon Home starting December 1. The Pokémon Company has noted that all of the Y-Comm features will still be accessible.

Scheduled for release on November 18th, Scarlet and Violet will be the first games in the series to be fully open world. All sorts of fun creatures were revealed ahead of release, the latest of which was the best thing I’ve seen in my life, Bellibolt joining the likes of Wiglett (who’s definitely not Diglett) and Farigiraf, the new evolution for Girafarig.

This latest pair of games also adds a new gimmick – cough – sorry, mechanic called terastallization. Terastallizing a Pokemon increases the power of its moves, but depending on whether you’ve caught a special one or not, it can also change its type, which admittedly sounds like you could employ some interesting strategies, even if it is just a derivative of z-movements and dynamaxing.