The unreleased Pokémon Champions will be the official video game of the World Championships 2026. It’s the first time any non-mainline game, new or remake, will be the VGC title of competitive Pokémon’s highest level.
The new generation of Pokémon, generation 10, should come out next year, though it hasn’t been announced yet. 2026 is when Pokémon celebrates its 30th anniversary, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet turn four. We never had a drought of new mainline games longer than four.
Whenever a main game like Scarlet and Violet releases, the World Championship is played in these new titles. New games have updated moves, abilities, Pokémon stats, and new Pokémon that everyone can use, but always follow the pure turn-based system with Pokémon moving one at a time based primarily on their speed stat. If that wasn’t going to change with whatever game is coming out next year, it would make sense that this Gen 10 game would be the official title of the VGC World Championships.
Since that’s not happening, the announcement of Champions makes it clear to me that the Gen 10 game will have simplified or completely different Pokémon battles.
Yet another battle system
The most obvious change would be to borrow the battle systems from Legends Arceus and Legends Z-A, which mix real-time and turn-based combat. Z-A will go further and include movement in Pokémon combat, and a lot of it in the recently announced battle royale mode called Z-A Battle Club, a free-for-all four-player battle. It would be redundant if the Gen 10 game simply released with such a system.
I’d love to see Pokémon having improved real-time dynamics while keeping its turn-based system, such as in Sea of Stars and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Doing so would be contrary to the logic of competitive Pokémon.
Such a big change would catch competitive players unaware and intimidate them with little time to master new mechanics at a high level. By keeping Champions as a competitive turn-based video game, the company can make any change it wants in Gen 10, whenever it wants.
Make battles more casual
My second theory is that Gen 10 will have a simplified Pokémon build system that will make combat more casual, just like Pokémon TCG Pocket became a laid-back TCG experience.
I would bet on fewer moves, no abilities, or a unified system of effort values (EVs) and individual values (IVs). Since Pokémon Champions will be a battle simulator in the traditional turn-based system, I expect it will let you optimize your Pokémon like usual. If these systems were in Gen 10, there would be no reason to take competitive to Champions. If Gen 10 was released after Worlds, the tournament could still be held in Scarlet and Violet one last time.
Whichever path the Pokémon Company decides to take for Gen 10 of Pokémon, I’m sure it will have the guts to change its battle system again. It will probably be the first time we’ll see a mainline Pokémon game take this different and unique approach that’s usually saved for spin-offs.
These spin-offs allowed The Pokémon Company to say that any changes they made were an experiment, and the traditional Pokémon game would remain as usual. I’m hoping they give up on the safety of the bulletproof turn-based game and try something different in Gen 10. And I’m also happy that, even if that happens, we have Pokémon Champions to give us that traditional competitive spirit and Pokémon gameplay that many of us grew to love, understand, and enjoy.
If either of my Gen 10 predictions comes true, they would show Pokémon’s age-old combat formula isn’t as sturdy as it looks. The Pokémon player base would get the novelty it has always wanted, and most of all, people who want to like Pokémon but don’t like its style may finally get something different that they can also enjoy.
There’s a third scenario where all my theory falls apart: We get no Gen 10 Pokémon game in 2026, and that’s the only reason Champions becomes the official VGC title next year. I just don’t think this would be justified in the game’s 30th anniversary, so I’m considering this as an impossible scenario.
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