If Pokémon Pokopia is not in my prime 5 video games of 2026 come December, we can have had an astonishing 4 months. At launch, this sport had me in a chokehold and refused to let me go till I discovered myself weeping at its finale. It is heartwarming and artistic and immensely fashionable, a lot so {that a} sequel feels inevitable. However I do not know that I actually desire a ‘Pokopia 2’.
This can be a thought that sprang to thoughts as I dove into the Bubbly Basin DLC final week. The enlargement is great, tweaking some small niggles I had with the gameplay (storage would not solely drive me up the wall anymore) and throwing in a completely new biome for me to enter with massive desires earlier than inevitably abandoning my aspirations down the road after three hours of laying paths.
The DLC’s upcoming ‘Half 2’ feels far much less bold on the time of writing, with the bonus equipment perhaps solely holding my consideration for a day or two, however ‘Half 3’ guarantees to go giant once more with yet one more new city to discover.
What began as a sport that I might already play eternally has in some way taken on much more content material, and I could not be happier with it — increasing the bottom sport by 40% inside a yr is not any imply feat. The large query is, what comes subsequent?
The reply appears fairly apparent to me: It is a sequel, is not it?
I might wish to see Ditto go and repair up a unique Pokémon area as a lot as the subsequent fan, however the central theme of regrowth and growth simply would not hit the identical.
Pokopia has been in every single place since launch, pulling in 5 million gross sales in “simply over 4 months” (making it the second most-popular Change 2 sport, with roughly a 21% set up base), sitting in fourth place on Metacritic’s best-rated video games of 2026 listing, and changing into the best-selling Pokémon spin-off of all time. There is no approach that The Pokémon Firm goes to disregard cash on the desk like that.
Although the DLC has received me excited about whether or not we actually want a ‘Pokopia 2’ within the first place. Think about with me, for a second, what a sequel would even appear like. A sport virtually similar to its predecessor, mechanically, however with some new biomes and Pokémon thrown in for good measure, proper? Does not that sound… lots just like the DLC?
And what would ‘the identical once more’ do to Pokopia’s story? I do not need to get slowed down within the ‘lore’ of a comfy crafting sport, however Pokopia’s narrative felt so very self-contained, and intricately tied to the gameplay, that it’d really feel fallacious to do it yet again. I might wish to see Ditto go and repair up a unique Pokémon area as a lot as the subsequent fan, however the central theme of regrowth and growth simply would not hit the identical.
There are positively components of Pokopia that I might nonetheless wish to see improved — a greater map sits proper on the prime — however these really feel like tweaks moderately than game-changing additions to hold a sequel off of.
There is a massive a part of me that thinks it may be higher for Pokopia in the long term to embrace the Minecraft college of thought: avoiding a straight, iterative sequel and taking place the enlargement route as an alternative. If Omega Pressure can maintain churning out these DLC packages, with new cities, Pokémon and gadgets besides, then ‘Pokopia 1′ (as we are going to all sooner or later inevitably name it) might final eternally. Higher that than plonking us proper again at first in 5 years’ time with one other introduction to Water Gun.
Certain, it may not be fairly as interesting from a enterprise perspective. Why not cost everybody one other 60 quid each few years for principally the identical sport once more? Loads of different sequence get away with it. However morally, in my coronary heart of hearts, I am unable to see what a sequel might deliver to the desk that would not be simply as simply carried out in one other enlargement.
In fact, I am no sport developer, and there is each likelihood that the geniuses over at Omega Pressure are already cooking up an thought for the sequel that is much more imaginative than my pessimistic little mind can muster. It managed it with Dragon Quest Builders 2, in spite of everything. If the center remains to be there with out feeling like a money-grabbing retread, I am going to little question be there on day one to lap it up.
Heck, the Pokéfan in me is so robust that even when it’s the identical sport once more with a ‘2’ slapped on the tip and that includes Bidoof this time, I might doubtless nonetheless be there to sing its praises. Wait, am I the issue right here..?