On the Origin of Species: Sobble, Drizzile, and Inteleon

Pokémon Masters is offering players many reasons to celebrate over the coming week with rallies and the Blissful Bonanza making a return, new sync grids for existing Sync Pairs, as well as a 6★ EX Upgrade for Hau, who features in the ongoing It's All Good Solo Event.

A limited-time distribution of Gastrodon was announced for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield during the 2022 Pokémon North America International Championships Pokémon VGC Day 1 livestream. This Gastrodon is based on the Gastrodon used by Eric Rios to win the 2022 Pokémon Europe International Championships. Players can redeem Gastrodon using the code「ER1CSGASTR0D0N」. This code can only be redeemed until June 27th.

Pokémon Masters EX is putting a spotlight on Free Spirit Sync Pairs with the game's latest Solo Event and Spotlight Scout. Solo Event: It's All Good, and the associated Triple Feature Spotlight Scout, will both run through until July 6th.

The next Pokémon Trading Card Game expansion, Sword & Shield - Lost Origin, has been officially announced by The Pokémon Company International. The expansion will be released worldwide from September 9th.

The Pokémon Company International and Play! Pokémon have announced that several cards will be banned from use in the upcoming 2022 Pokémon World Championships held in August in London. These bans are not being put in place due to any inherent balance issues with the cards themselves, but rather are being made to ensure a fair play environment due to certain cards having not received a worldwide distribution.

Niantic has announced more details on the in-person Pokémon GO Fest 2022 event in Berlin, Seattle, and Sapporo. Trainers attending the Berlin, Seattle, and Sapporo Pokémon GO Fest events will encounter an Ultra Beast as a part of their Special Research.

The official Japanese Pokémon website and the official Play! Pokémon Twitter account have announced a new distribution for Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Players can receive a Shiny Baneful Fox Mask, based on the one that Alec wears in the Pokémon: Hisuian Snow animated short, by selecting "Get via internet" from the Mystery Gift feature. This distribution will end in a little under one year's time, on June 1st, 2023, at 5am PDT.

Two Hues, the third and final episode of the three-episode animated series, Pokémon: Hisuian Snow, based on Pokémon Legends: Arceus and set in the Hisui region is now available on the official Pokémon Youtube channel and Pokémon TV. The series was being produced by The Pokémon Company International in collaboration with WIT STUDIO.

The Special Event Rival Challenge and Main Character Poké Fair Scout has started in Pokémon Masters EX, featuring various rivals and main characters respectively. The event and scout banner will remain available until July 3rd.

The 2022 Pokémon North America International Championships will be held in Columbus, Ohio from June 24th to June 26th. Trainers will compete for Championship Points (CP) for the 2022 Pokémon World Championships, which are taking place across August 18th to 21st in London, England at the ExCeL London events center. Fans can catch all the action via livestreams on the various official Pokémon Twitch channels.

For roughly three weeks until the middle of July, McDonalds locations across Japan will be running a "Pokémon Outdoors" promotion, selling a range of new "Pokémon Outdoors Happy Meals", with a total of eight collectable toys featuring Pikachu and other Pokémon. These Happy Meals range in price from 470~500 yen ($3.48~$3.71 USD) each.

Celebrate the 2-year anniversary of the release of the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Expansion Pass The Isle of Armor with Gigantamax Urshifu (Single Strike Style) and Gigantamax Urshifu (Rapid Strike Style) appearing more frequently in Max Raid Battles in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield through until June 19th, at 4:59pm (PDT). Trainers defeating them will receive valuable items not normally available from from Max Raid Battles.

Niantic has ended support on Pokémon GO for mobile devices running on Android 6, "Marshmallow". Players will need to update their OS to continue access to Pokémon GO. iOS users and Android users running on Android 7, "Nougat," or above are not affected by this change.

The Pokémon Company International has announced that the POKÉTOON animated shorts will be available in English on Pokémon TV from this Friday, June 17th with the first episode "Scraggy and Mimikyu". POKÉTOON were originally released on the Japanese-language Pokémon Kids TV YouTube channel. There are eight POKÉTOON episodes in total, and a new one will release every Friday.

An Alcremie Team Event has now started in Pokémon Café ReMix. Players can take this chance to clear Main orders and Past orders and earn points with team members to receive various rewards and boosters. Alcremie can also be recruited as staff this way. This event will end on June 24th, at 2:59 p.m. JST.

Niantic has announced that the Irate Pokémon, Deino will be the featured Pokémon for June 2022's Pokémon GO Community Day. During this event, Deino will be appearing more frequently in the wild, and its Shiny variant will also be available. The event will be held on June 25th, from 11:00am to 2:00pm local time.

The Single Battle Cup Online Competition for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield is now open for registration until June 23rd, at 4:59pm (PDT). The competition itself will takebplace from June 23rd, at 5:00pm to June 26th, at 4:59pm (PDT).

After the top 100 were revealed early last month, the winners of the Pokémon Trading Card Game Illustration Contest 2022 have finally been revealed today by Creatures, Inc. and The Pokémon Company International via the contest's official website, as well as official Pokémon social media channels. The contest was first announced back in September 2021, and asked artists for submissions that captured the theme of “the daily life of Pokémon”. Open to artists in the United States and Japan between October 13th, 2021, and January 31st, 2022, the contest attracted a total of 10,830 entries, which were judged by a panel of people from both Creatures, Inc. and The Pokémon Company, including official illustrators for the Pokémon TCG.

James Turner, the British graphic designer who served as Art Director for Pokémon Sword and Shield, announced today that he is leaving Game Freak to establish his own game studio, All Possible Futures, together with his old friend Jonathan Biddle, who most recently worked on the indie title The Swords of Ditto.

U-TREASURE, a Japanese jewelry company who produces "authentic character-based jewelry for adults," have released a new diamond cut with a Poké Ball motif. The diamond is called the "POCKET MONSTERS Monster Ball Diamond," and features 143 small facets. The diamond, which has been meticulously designed and crafted by some of Japan's best specialists in the field of diamond cutting, boasts almost 2.5 times more diamonds than a typical brilliant round cut.