Nintendo casually drops the Pokémon Pokopia release date, and it’s sooner than you think

With absolutely zero fanfare, Nintendo announced the release date for Pokémon Pokopia, the highly anticipated Pokémon life sim that takes inspiration from Animal Crossing, Minecraft, and Dragon Quest. It also revealed that while the game is getting a physical edition, it’s a game key card instead of a standard game card.

In Pokémon Pokopia, you get to play as Ditto, which transforms itself into a human, going around making Pokémon friends and building homes for them to enjoy. To do so, as you can see in the trailer, you need to make the most out of your friends’ abilities. For instance, if you need some grass, it looks like Bulbasaur is the ‘mon for the job.

Despite not technically being a cozy game series itself, tons of Pokémon fans love the cozy genre, so Pokopia is the exact spin-off title that many of us have waited years for. However, some people are disappointed that the game’s physical edition is a game key card, rather than a standard cartridge. Nintendo used Pokémon Pokopia as the example title in its game key card explainer video, revealing the game’s box art and its download size of 10GB.

When is the Pokémon Pokopia release date?

Pokémon Pokopia releases on the Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5, 2026. Pre-orders for the digital edition begin on November 12, 2025, and the day after for the physical edition.

We can’t wait to hop into this new Pokémon game as soon as it drops, but there’s still plenty to explore around Lumiose City while we wait, so check out our Pokémon ZA Eevee and Pokémon ZA Pikachu guides next.