Pokémon Winds and Winds Leaks Tease A Pokédex Too Huge To End

This summer time’s Pokémon Winds and Waves rumors and leaks instructed subsequent 12 months’s mainline entry might function 300 new Pokémon. These leaks, by any rational particular person’s learn, must be taken with a whole Stantler lick of salt. However they’re nonetheless worrying. Hey, even a damaged Hoothoot is true twice a day!

If these rumors transform true, a crop of 300 new Pokémon would mark the only greatest new era of Pokémon ever. For context, right here’s what number of Pokémon have been launched with every new era, in accordance with information monitoring from Serebii:

Followers are fairly break up on whether or not 300 new Pokémon is an exciting prospect of creature-collecting or an absurdly wild swing that may oversaturate an already fairly saturated compendium of monsters. One caveat, in accordance with the leaks, is that Winds and Waves gained’t actually add 300 completely new Pokémon; that quantity might comprise alternate varieties or regional variants along with wholly unique Pokémon.

For all intents and functions the excellence is meaningless. Alolan Ninetails is basically totally different Pokémon than common Ninetails in each significant approach — its look, its typing, and its moveset, to not point out the methods that you must memorize whether or not you’re preventing with it in your roster or in opposition to it on an opponent’s. However hey, Ninetails and Alolan Ninetails have the identical title and Nationwide ‘Dex quantity, so are they actually that totally different? (Sure, I say.)

Graphic: Polygon | Supply pictures: Recreation Freak/Nintendo, The Pokémon Firm

300 new Pokémon… I wouldn’t even know what to do with that. For many years, Pokémon video games championed the best of a six-Pokémon social gathering: You’d select six monsters, stage them up out of your first gymnasium badge by means of the Elite 4, and forge bonds over the course of a prolonged RPG. There was an intentional pressure to swapping social gathering members out that pressured you to offer critical consideration earlier than subbing in a brand new Pokémon. However beginning with 2018’s Let’s Go Pikachu! and Let’s Go Eevee!, all the pieces modified. You may swap out the Pokémon in your social gathering from (largely) anyplace at (largely) any level. The true-time battles in final 12 months’s Legends: Z-A actively inspired swapping out Pokémon on the fly, additional eroding the six-Pokémon social gathering. Bringing 300 new Pokémon into the fold can solely incentivize that shift much more.

There’s additionally the truth that — cue an previous man yells at cloud second — Pokémon designers are actually beginning to scrape the underside of the barrel. Keys are Pokémon now. There’s a Pokémon that’s actually simply an ice cream cone with a face. (Admittedly, Vanillite is 16 years previous. However that was the start of the tip!)

And this isn’t simply nostalgia speaking. Within the Pokémon group, there’s a meme-ified chorus that “each Pokémon is somebody’s favourite.” In 2025, one YouTuber really put that notion to the take a look at in a wide-ranging survey of greater than 26,000 respondents. Greater than 50 Pokémon didn’t get any votes in any respect. Of these, simply one of the unique 151. (Pour one out for poor Tentacool.) In the meantime, the most-beloved Pokémon largely originated in earlier generations.

For each Dragapult, there’s an Applin (it’s an apple). For each Sprigatio, there’s a Flamigo (assume: a literal Flamingo). If the brand new era comprised 100, perhaps 150, Pokémon, I might see a lot of them being worthy additions to the Pokédex. However at this level, 10 generations into the sequence, I actually don’t have religion that Recreation Freak might prepare dinner up 300 fascinating creature designs for Winds and Waves.

So, what’s the best measurement for a brand new era of Pokémon? I can’t say for positive, not with out understanding extra particulars concerning the general construction of Winds and Waves, which have been stored up to now below wraps we don’t even know the title of the tropical area they’re set in. However I can say that, if 300 new Pokémon do be a part of the roster, there might be no catching all of them.