Pokémon Home doesn't work with one of the most popular Pokémon games, for now
Whatever happened to Pokémon GO being part of Home?
Pokémon Home launched overnight Tuesday, giving fans of the Nintendo franchise the ability to transfer Pokémon from past games to Sword and Shield through a centralized cloud database, but whatever happened to integrating Pokémon GO into the mix?
Currently, Home directly links together Sword and Shield, the Let’s Go games, and eight 3DS games. In theory, it's even possible to transfer pocket monsters all the way from Game Boy Advance titles as well. When it was originally announced, Pokémon Home was said to also incorporate the smash-hit mobile AR game Pokémon GO into the mix as well, but the service's surprise launch left GO hanging.
For anyone anxiously wondering why the Pokémon Home mobile app can't interact in any way with Pokémon GO, just know that it's still in the works.
"There are plans to support Pokémon GO in the future as well," Nintendo states plainly on Home’s landing page. Nintendo has yet to announce when gamers should expect to be able to transfer Pokémon from the mobile game to Home, but it's probably delayed because GO is unlike any other Pokémon game in existence right now, so integrating them can't be nearly as easy.
Pokémon Home will support 'Pokémon GO'...eventually.
When will Pokémon GO functionality be added to Pokémon Home?
The next major update coming to Sword and Shield in June 2020 is the Isle of Armor expansion that will add new Pokémon, quests, and a whole new area of the Galar region explore. That DLC pack could feasibly include the smaller announcement of Pokémon GO getting support for Pokémon Home.
Nintendo’s January Pokémon Direct primarily focused on the two-part expansion pass being added to Sword and Shield, but the company also took a few minutes to announce that Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX would be released on the Nintendo Switch in March. The company’s next Direct ahead of the Isle of Armor release might also include squeeze in some good news for Pokémon GO fans that want to train the pocket monsters they’ve caught on the app in Sword and Shield.
The Pokédex menu in Pokémon Home.
How will Pokémon Home function with Pokémon GO?
Once support for Pokémon GO is added to Home, players will be able to transfer the pocket monsters they found walking around using the mobile app into Sword and Shield, where they can be further trained and evolved. Home won't function the other way around, however, meaning that this one-way trip cannot happen in reverse. Pokémon can be transferred between Sword and Shield and the Home database, but anything added to Home has to stay there.
The only requirement for Pokémon to be transferred into Sword and Shield is that they need to exist in the game's somewhat limited Pokédex. Therefore, attempting to transfer a Rattata you found in Pokémon GO to Sword and Shield won’t work because the purple rodent was cut from the Switch games. That means many players’ Pokémon will be stuck in the limbo that is Pokémon Home, but Nintendo has plans to try and remedy this.
The companies added 35 additional Pokémon to the Galarian Pokédex Wednesday following the Pokémon Home announcement. Some highlights include the other two Kanto starters, Bulbasaur and Squirtle, along with Mew and Mewtwo. This move seemed like a direct answer to the “Dexit” controversy that bedeviled Sword and Shield even before they launched once fans realized many classic Pokémon would not be included in the Switch games.
It’s possible that even more legacy Pokémon are added to the franchise’s latest releases in the future so gamers can make the most out of the critters they found in Pokémon GO and other titles from the series when the time comes.
Pokémon Home is available now for Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.
