Pokémon Sword And Shield's The Crown Tundra DLC Launches Next Month, All Past Legendaries Appear

Good stuff! Will be interested to see if that's it or if we'll get a Part 3...

That was a good presentation they gave us everything we needed! We got a release date for the DLC with an exact layout of what it will contain and gives fans an easy way to finish their National Dex in Home with an easy way to transfer Meltan and Melmetal with GO/Home transfer.

That and the Bump of Chicken video was such a love letter to fans. Gamefreak did a great job!

Exciting stuff. Can't wait to jump into this!

Great! I have some legendary shinys that I would like to pass on to the sword.

I knew it, I knew that they were going to release versions which include the main game + the DLCs

But that's fine imo, so they still have their third versions (sort of) but people who already have the original SwSh don't have to buy these games to get the new content

How many exclusions, in the end?

@mariomaster96 That's fine for me! Third versions have always been a more expensive way to play these games as most fans ended up double-dipping into them. That and after Platinum it was more like sequels with Black/White 2 and Ultra Sun/Moon which can get expensive if you want both versions for dex completion or Ultra's case to get all the legendary pokemon from the Ultra Wormhole... so honestly, the DLC route is cheaper. And if fans want to double-dip on the opposite game they can now get the second game with DLC for cheaper then buying them separately!

I'm so pumped for this DLC pack to come out as my loyal shiny Garchomp from Unova can join me and we will take on the Star Champion Tournament!

Bruh they're making us pay extra for Pokémon that should have been already there. Whatever, it was a good presentation, not another to get ME to get the DLC, but not bad.

Glad they didn't spoil the plot in the trailer. We can still play this wondering what's going to happen next.

Loved the music vid at the end!

@HotGoomba You don't need to buy the DLC to get the returning pokemon. Just like Isle of Armour, there will be a free update that will add the extra 100+ pokemon into the game for FREE! So if you already have these pokemon sitting in Home feel free to transfer them. Or you can get them via trades in Sword and Shield through WiFi trading or Wonder Trade.

If you want to catch the Galarian Legendary Birds and the new Legendary pokemon you will need to get the DLC. But, the story campaign seems meaty and has new postgame content! And based off Isle of Armour this seems to be a piece of high quality with robust content DLC that will be worth your money.

Looks good. Very hyped. It'll be very tricky to trade legendaries though considering how many seem locked behind in each version (if the brief glimpse in the video is to be believed). Pokémon Home is still useless to use so my full Pokédex is likely to be tough to complete.
But that's me whining, the new location looks cool and I'm happy it's still releasing this year after all that's happened.

What next.... A second expansion pass or will we see the new Pokémon game teased soon?

I'm really excited about legendaries coming back. I was confused as to whether or not it's just a select few legendaries (the gameplay footage appeared to show only some) or if it's all.

Whatever the case, I hope they're all catchable and not just relegated to raid battles

And hallelujah to the Pokémon Go connection to Home finally arriving

not the music video making me cry lmao. As a child of the 90s, I was truly indoctrinated from the get-go

It was noble of Gamefreak to add those pokemon back in that they "Couldn't possibly add to the game" and "removed for balance purposes, we swear".

@Wexter Ok, now I understand.

@pip_muzz There is a workaround that glitch with transferred Pokemon not registering in the Pokedex. Just visit the Breeder and put the pokemon in (that you transferred) and then just take them out! That will register the pokemon! Though I assume much like Ultra Sun/Moon legendaries from previous games will not count towards your Pokedex completion. But, we will just need to see!

I will wait until the pass goes on sale, no value in it from what I can tell than "pay for all these Pokémon you should have had in the first place" GTFO Pokémon Company you are drunk.

@HotGoomba Don't worry man! I do think the DLC will be well worth your time, but Gamefreak has you covered if you choose not to get it for the returning cast. Though don't forget to claim your Melmetal and Ash Cap Pikachu as you don't need the DLC for those!

@Jokerwolf You don't need to pay to get the returning pokemon. I will repeat from a comment I posted above:

"You don't need to buy the DLC to get the returning pokemon. Just like Isle of Armour, there will be a free update that will add the extra 100+ pokemon into the game for FREE! So if you already have these pokemon sitting in Home feel free to transfer them. Or you can get them via trades in Sword and Shield through WiFi trading or Wonder Trade."

This really is not complicated as it was repeated throughout the release of Isle of Armour. The new legendaries you will need to get the DLC to catch them yourself and the DLC adds new post-game content. That is the value of the DLC not the returning Pokemon.

All previous legendaries have come back for the past three generations. This just doesn't feel special to me any more. But, as legendaries typically have returned in the last game of a generation, it makes me more interested in knowing what's coming next.

@Wexter Preventing me from catching them is locking them behind DLC any way you fanboys try to spin it lmao.

@Jokerwolf Name me the last Pokemon game where you can catch every Pokemon in the single base game... I'll wait because odds are you will name either Red/Blue/Yellow or Silver/Gold/Crystal which were almost 20 years ago.

This DLC is meant to add new post-game content for fans of the game and a chance to catch new and returning Pokemon. But, the Pokemon themselves are not locked out for those who did not pickup the DLC which is PRO CONSUMER! Because they could have easily put these pokemon behind a paywall and say too bad to transfer X pokemon you need the DLC. That is not spin, it is fact that they didn't do that.

There are a few I don't even recognize. I must of missed a few during Sun and Moon.

So LEGENDARY Pokémon are back......
What about MYTHICAL??

@Wexter Still too expensive IMO, they should each be half that.

@Picton123 POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR CROWN TUNDRA

Rumour has it Darkrai and Keldeo are catchable so I think they have plans for those. Just wait I'm sure they will have the rest covered in a later update or event.

@Jokerwolf Then that is for you to decide if the DLC is worth your money. That does not make Gamefreak putting returning Pokemon behind a paywall. That makes you not seeing the value of extra post-game content, new Legendaries and Galarian forms, or catching the returning pokemon in Galar worth the price. But, Gamefreak has been extremely pro-consumer in not locking out returning favourites for those who already caught them.

@Wexter I stopped my wife from buying it too and a few other people so I did my part haha.

@Jokerwolf So you misinformed your wife and others (and I assume browbeat them or shamed them) to not buy a DLC they were looking forward to? Wow, you must be a really good friend and husband. Really happy for them. haha haha haha

(hope you caught my obvious sarcasm)

This sounds meaty. If the boxed package is a reasonable cost, I'm buying it.

@Jokerwolf I convinced 2 of my friends to buy it so it evens out I guess

Really excited for the DLC and I'm glad it launches so soon. Seems like the postgame will be expanded quite a bit.

@MajinSoul You have no idea how pumped my brother is for this! This is his first Pokemon game since Ruby and Saphire (he bought White, X, Omega Ruby and Sun, but he barely played them) that he finished and he is so excited for this DLC! He went out and started the older games to shiny hunt and get Ribbons for his Pokemon as he loves the new Title feature!

He loves this game and it's so nice to see this game bring back older fans!

@Kameken It would have been so much smarter PR-wise for them to just go ahead and admit that they couldn't fit in all of the cut Pokemon due to time constraints because they wanted to ship the game last year, but they'd include all (or most) of the missing ones in a free update later on down the line.

I still haven't touched the games, and only now am I even being tempted. No amount of shilling fans and extra content that should have been in the base game can fix that; only content that should have been there in the first place.

GameFreak: "We've left out some Pokemon for balancing reasons, and they won't be added back later."

Adds Landorus later

@Wexter One open area and one gym per DLC is not worth what they want for it, I am leaving it at that. No I am a good friend and husband because they don't have to waste their money until a sale inevitably happens down the road. We also have many better games to play like WoW, Revenant, Monster Hunter. Not a big deal.

But what a out mythicals?
I want to use my victini, shaymin and diancie 😩

Yay, so much for a balanced meta game!

I have had a lot of fun with Shield and Isle of Armor, looking forward to Crown Tundra. Reading through the comments, it seems like those that are dissatisfied with what Sw/Sh and the dlc has to offer probably haven’t played much Pokémon in the last ten years. These games offer a solid Pokémon experience and the dlc is an improvement over the “third game” that they’ve been doing.

@Jokerwolf So two entire new wild area about the size of the base game with new environments and weather patterns (and swarming with content and trainer battles), new pokemon, a new Challenge Cup, a chance to catch over 200 returning pokemon in these wild areas, Raid Dens, Legendary Raid Dens, and new story content which are far more expansive than "gyms" which include their own stories which based on my experience with Isle of Armour is about 6-8 hours of story content (and if we include what looks be Crown Tundra's size about another 8-12 hours of content equalling about 14-20 hours of new story content)... this tells me you really did not do any research on these DLC and made an assumption. But, good for you for convincing yourself that these do not have value and that you are "waiting for a sale" and when we are talking about Pokemon probably might be a 10% discount at best. I'm allowed to call you out because you posted your opinion in a public place.

@Wexter Maybe I am just bored of Pokemon too, same old boring battle system nothing really new. I think I am just done. If they made active combat where you can control your Pokémon then we are talking but if they keep the game in the past and can keep selling it good on them haha. I am going to sell my old Pokémon game collection, I have all of the GBA ones CIB and some go for like 300$.

@Jokerwolf Cool good for you! But, honestly, the complaining about value is very baseless. Just say you're burned out rather than saying this content is not worth the value. Because it is clear this content has a lot of value.

And no I quite like turn-based combat and so do many others. So have fun!

@Wexter Oh yes I don't mean that glitch, I worked around that on the Isle of Armour just fine. I meant the act of putting Pokémon onto Pokémon home and the exchange function being filled with impossible trade requests that clog the whole system up. With more specific Pokémon to trade with legendaries, it's going to be much harder as the actual Pokémon Home app is borderline unusable in my opinion.

@pip_muzz Ughhh I know... I'm glad Home as a filter to exclude legendary/mythical requests, but I stopped using it. I now just use Discord servers like AustinJohnPlays or Blaines to set up trades for Pokemon I need (mostly Mythicals I missed during the events they came out for). Very frustrating that Home does not have an offer feature where you can make an offer to the host of the trade and see if they'd be willing to take it instead of what they are asking. Or even to specify if you are looking for a specific pokemon variant like a Aloha or Galar form (or vise-versa) or even in the case of Pokemon with specific weather forms or regional (like what part of the world they were caught in) forms.

But, yeah I get what you mean Home is a nice storage app, but outside of Wonder Trades is a massive waste of time. I sometimes put my rare pokemon in a Wonder Trade if I have a double-shiny or something like that. Mostly because I feel that is a more fun way of getting rid of them rather than putting up a trade on the GTS.

Isle of Armour was pretty mediocre, so I doubt I'll look at Crown Tundra. I really should stop buying Pokémon games; I always end up blowing right through them because they're so easy and then the endgame content never holds my interest.

Looking good.

@VenomousAlbino Same here, and I have decided that I have outgrown them and will not be getting any mainline Pokémon games as they never do anything meaningful to change the formula.

@Jokerwolf I wouldn't mind them being so easy to steamroll through if they had difficulty settings. Like keep the default difficulty for those who want it, but put in a "hard" mode that ups the levels of opponents and makes them actually play strategically instead of doing dumb **** like spamming Refect (or Protect; whichever move it is that negates all damage that turn) until it doesn't work.

@mariomaster96 Honestly i was kind of the way to go about it. "Armor+Crown" is definitely the kind of extra content seen in past titles and the like and meanwhile the release of this bundle does extend the visibility of the title at retail for new potential players longer than just the original "sans DLCs" retail copy would have on it's own.

And from there, thanks to the new players, they can either extend the 9th gen with a newer title later(like a new pair of game such as the remake of a previous generations like the oft-wished-for Diamond/Pearl) or outright more DLCs(since the retail bundles' players might become an even higher potential customer base for future DLCs).

I just had a thought, do you think Peony is Chairman Rose's brother or did Rose change his name to avoid detection?

@Torakaka I kind had the sibling thought as well

Time to spend another couple hundred hours into this game! On top of the 460+ I've already dumped into it!

@Shamrock Same I don't have the dlc yet.

They are making pokemon too easy... Now you can easily get all the legenday pokemon... (partly I blame the hacked/cloned pokemon, I think they gave uo on trying to fight it and just made it available...) Game Freak really needs to step up the quality of the story in future games or otherwise I really dont see the appeal... You cant continue to create 100+ pokemon generations each game going forward...

@VenomousAlbino Exactly!

@VenomousAlbino I would love to see them have combat options, OG turn based or Pokken Tournament style battling where you can customize your moves. I like the turn based just fine but I would be far more immersed if I could play as my Pokemon and master them like a fighting game. There is just not enough change in the series, same ***** different pile and same problems.

So,

• It's launching October 22/23th
• All the previous legendaries are coming back alongside pseudos. More and more Pokémon coming back so Game Freak can focus on other aspects of the next Pokémon game.

HOPEFULLY it confirms this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWo15uGvxfs&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MudkipMemo

Looking forward to this now!

Peony though?! The naming and general character design in this game drive me mad.

But then again I'm in my 30s and should expect better...

@Jokerwolf “ I would love to see them have combat options, OG turn based or Pokken Tournament style battling where you can customize your moves. I like the turn based just fine but I would be far more immersed if I could play as my Pokemon and master them like a fighting game. There is just not enough change in the series, same ***** different pile and same problems.”

I think the problem you’re having is expecting the core gameplay, the turn based jrpg style battle system, to be something other than what it is. If you no longer enjoy that combat system, then you would be better served finding a different game to play altogether.

You mention that the gameplay hasn’t evolved. I’d argue that it has quite a lot with each new generation. I won’t go through the list, but each new generation introduces new mechanics to master and the meta evolves on a regular basis.

@CosmoXY To each their own, I love plenty of much better old-school JRP's just fine and go back and play them. There has been minimal evolution over the years and I can list them all too. Everyone seems to be ok with the same Call of D.. I mean Pokémon game and that is fine enjoy it, many people enjoy bad games because they have addictive qualities and that is ok too.

@Jokerwolf updates to the formula would be welcome but what you're talking about is completely changing the core gameplay, at which point the Devs risk alienating the fanbase. There's a reason, for example, the turn-based upcoming Yakuza game is Yakuza: Like a Dragon and not Yakuza 7; by positioning itself as a spin-off, it can experiment and take risks.

Oh, wow, all past legendaries returning, now that's an original idea... It was cool in BW2, interesting in ORAS and mostly pointless padding in SM. What's the point of adding them all in yet again now?

Wow, this presentation was even worse than I expected. I knew we probably wouldn't get much more info, but all they had to show was a minor QoL feature that was already leaked, details on a Galarian form that was previously revealed, the return of a cheap anime tie-in form, more pushing of everyone's favorite F2P scam, and a DLC bundle we probably all saw coming? Lame. I was expecting a "one more thing" kind of feature reveal, but it looks like they blew everything out on Crown Tundra's features months ago. This was pretty much 90% stuff we already knew about and the other 10% was just minor scraps.

I'm a big fan of how they've handled these expansions. It's given us new Pokemon content for 2020, and also gives them extra time for the next Pokemon game (Gen 4 remake next holiday?).

@Bolt_Strike Are you high? Just because something was "leaked" does not mean they should not be announcing these features officially for fans who do not follow leaks. That and they gave a solid release date which is way earlier than we expected (mid-November). This was a solid presentation and that little Bump the Chicken video was an amazing piece of marketing as it was on 15th on YouTube trending last night.

@VenomousAlbino I agree. Pokemon really should not radically change it's gameplay because that can lead to losing a franchise's identity. Think of Final Fantasy as after X-2 each game has radically changed it's gameplay and more and more fans have become divided on the topic. XII and XIII were 'love it or hate it' games with their radical gameplay systems. XV completely embraced an open-world setup with a spectacle Fighter combat system while still trying to maintain it's RPG roots to mixed reception. The only gameplay loop that got a ton of love in recent memory from a Final Fantasy game was FFVII Remake and even that has vocal detractors as that game embraced a mixture of Kingdom Hearts and Xenoblade for its combat system which strayed even further from traditional turn-based RPGs.

What I'm saying is while the idea sounds nice that should be saved for spin-offs. Like the comparison to Yakuza by tagging it Like a Dragon in the West, they give themselves more room to experiment past the open-world brawlers of the past without dividing the fanbase. Pokemon should look into streamlining the gameplay systems they have, such as removing redundant text and speeding up combat, while also highlighting its massive depth by embracing an Advance mode for veteran players to make gyms a bit more challenging while retaining the easier modes as an option. Label them something like New Trainer and Champion mode. Similar to what Zelda does with Hero mode.

@Wexter and it's not like Pokémon fans don't have alternatives to the traditional turn-based formula, either. I might have burnt out on the mainline games, but if I want a Pokémon fix, there's still Pokkén, Mystery Dungeon, Puzzle League, Snap, etc. Thinking about it, Pokémon fans actually have one of the most eclectic range of alternatives and spin-offs available.

@VenomousAlbino It isn't alienating anyone if it is an OPTION lmao, you could easily have both battle systems in the game and seamlessly change between them based on your preference, no one can argue that that would be a bad thing as having more options is good for the life of the series. When you go online you would just have a lobby for each battle style, problem solved and it breathes tons of life into the stale series.

@Jokerwolf having both battle methods in the game isn't something that could be easily implemented at all. Pokémon is not only balanced with turn-based battles in mind, but to implement a real-time battle system akin to Pokkén (as you mentioned), Game Freak would have to completely re-write or change the game engine, implement all kinds of new balancing to account for free player movement, write an entirely new AI to make use of said movement, not to mention having to FULLY animate around 900 unique models with tens of thousands of possible moves.

At that point, you're essentially asking Game Freak to create two entirely different games.

@VenomousAlbino You cannot tell me that would not be amazing though is my point, I get people want the same boring thing but I am a fan I just don't want to keep playing the same game over and over and over and over, I can go back and play the old games on emulator and what not if I want to play the games I already played lol. Pokémon now has Call of Duty syndrome.

@Jokerwolf If that's your point then, yes, that would be amazing, but saying it could easily be done is utter nonsense.

@Wexter Leaked or not, it's a minor QoL feature that really doesn't add much to the game. And a release date is about the bare minimum they could've given us. Don't kid yourself, this was practically nothing.