Pokémon Sword And Shield Leak May Confirm New Regional Exclusives

On June 5th, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will lift the veil draped over Pokémon Sword and Shield just a few inches higher.

Indeed, any Trainer worth their salt will already be keenly aware of the Direct Presentation dedicated solely to the Switch exclusives airing tomorrow, though there’s a very real chance that its contents have leaked ahead of time. As per a recent post discovered on controversial message board 8Chan, the anonymous leak in question details a huge list of Pokémon supposedly intended to appear in Sword and Shield, all of which are said to be regional variants of existing critters from Generations past.

Before we don the surgical gloves and further dissect the ramifications of this latest leak (should it be true, of course) though, check out the full unedited catalogue for yourselves below.

• Noctowl: Ice/Flying (Becomes black, with bits of dark blue.)
• Sentret: Normal/Ground (Now has steel-claws)
• Furret: Normal/Ground (Has a drill on its tail)
• Spinarak: Bug/Ghost (is now black, but the smiley on it’s black is a bright pink)
• Ariados: Bug/Ghost (Same as Spinerak. Now has a spooky angry-face on it’s back.)
• Jumpluff: Grass/Fairy (Body becomes white, pom-pom-things turn pink)
• Sudowoodo: Steel (Now disguised as a pinetree)
• Houndour: Dark/Ice (“skull” on its head is now made out of ice)
• Houndoom: Dark/Ice (Horns and bone-parts are now Icicles)
• Magcargo: Fire/Water (Has now a seashell as it’s house)
• Ralts: Dark/Fairy (Green “Helmet” turns dark blue and the dress-part becomes purple)
• Kirlia: Dark/Fairy (Same as Ralts, but it’s legs stay white)
• Gardevoir: Dark/Fairy (The same as previous, looks a bit like it’s Mega)
• Zangoose: Fighting/Dark (White fur becomes black, has sharper claws)
• Seviper: Poison/Steel (Has a giant iron spike-ball instead of it’s Knife-tail)
• Spoink: Poison (Tail is made of purple sludge and it’s crystal is dark purple)
• Grumpig: Poison/Ghost (same with spoink, but it’s pink parts become dark green)

Based on the descriptions of each entry, it appears as if Game Freak is on course to bring back a popular feature from 2016’s Pokémon Sun and Moon. Players of the Gen 7 titles will no doubt recall their addition of Alolan forms – alternate versions of existing Pokémon with wildly different appearances, moves and types. The shortlist above could well be the first indication that Sword and Shield will have its own alternative in so-called Galarian or Galon Pokémon, named after the Galar region.

As always, everything up to this point should be taken with a sack of salt, but the leaker does sign off with the claim that a new trailer is scheduled to arrive a week prior to E3. With tomorrow’s Direct now set in stone and extremely likely to feature a new preview, this could be what the whistleblower was referring to.

Either way, we’ll find out if there’s any truth to these latest Pokémon Sword and Shield rumors in less than 24 hours. Stay tuned!