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Pokémon Sword & Shield Expansions, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX Announced

by Alex Fuller · Published January 9, 2020 · Updated January 10, 2020

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company held a twenty-minute presentation today focused on the Pokémon franchise. The video began with the reveal of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, a remake of the first games in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX will be released for Nintendo Switch on March 6, 2020, though a demo version is available to download on the Nintendo eShop from today. The game is a crossover between the Pokémon series and Spike Chunsoft’s Mystery Dungeon dungeon-crawling series and sees players controlling a human who is transformed into a Pokémon and decides to form a rescue team to help Pokémon affected by disasters occurring across the world. It will include updated visuals from the original Nintendo DS versions of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, as well as a new auto-mode and an increased party size of up to eight Pokémon. Players will be able to transfer save progress from the demo to the full version of the game.

After this, developer Game Freak announced an expansion pass for Pokémon Sword and Shield. The expansion pass is designed to replace the third version that previous generations of games received, with two separate expansions announced and included in the pass. The first expansion is called The Isle of Armor and will be released in June 2020. It will take players to the eponymous island, which contains new environments such as beaches, forests, bogs, caves, and sand dunes. There, players will train at a special dojo under the legendary trainer Mustard, a former Champion who also trained Leon. Players will also come across a new rival — Poison-type trainer Klara in Pokémon Sword, Psychic-type specialist Avery in Pokémon Shield.

The other expansion is called The Crown Tundra and will launch in the fall of 2020. This will take players to the titular snow-swept area, which is home to jagged mountains and small communities. Players will travel as part of an expedition after being appointed by a certain character, and be able to fully explore Pokémon Dens, which have only been briefly shown in Max Raid Battles so far in Sword and Shield.

Both expansions will introduce new legendary Pokémon. The Isle of Armor includes Fighting-type Pokémon Kubfu, which can evolve into Fighting/Dark-type Urshifu (Single Strike Style) or Fighting/Water-type Urshifu (Rapid Strike Style). The Crown Tundra will feature Psychic/Grass-type Calyrex, which is said to have ruled the entire region of Galar in ancient times. The Isle of Armor will also add Gigamax forms for Rillaboom, Cinderace, and Inteleon, while a Galarian form of Slowpoke has been added in an update available today. Galarian Slowpoke can evolve into Galarian Slowbro using an item found on the Isle of Armor, or into Galarian Slowking using an item found in the Crown Tundra. The update will let players meet Klara or Avery and add a Galarian Slowpoke to their team if they head to Wedgehurst Station.

Other Pokémon will also make their debuts in Pokémon Sword and Shield with the expansions. Free updates will be released alongside these expansions, which will let players who do own the expansions attain these newly-added Pokémon through trades or from previous games via the Pokémon Home service, which is set to launch in February 2020. The expansions will also include other additions, such as new outfits, items, and moves.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX Screenshots and Trailer