Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Finally Get Pokemon Home Support Later This Month
May 21, 2023: The Pokémon Company originally announced that the Pokémon Home update would arrive on May 23. That date has been retracted. The company now states that the date is to be announced. The original article remains below.
Some of us have been waiting for Pokémon Home support to hit "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Pokémon Violet" before jumping into competitive play. After all, why should you have to retrain your teams when you have perfectly good Pokémon just chilling in a box?
Nintendo has announced that you can start ushering your Pokémon over to the newest games (or from "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Violet" into older games with Home support like "Sword and Shield") starting May 23 at 6 p.m. Pacific (9 p.m. Eastern). Look for version 3.0.0 after your Pokémon Home app updates, and you should be set.
As always, you won't be able to transfer Pokémon to a game they don't originally appear in. You can also transfer Roaming Form Gimmighoul into the games, which was previously only available in "Pokémon GO." Wondering which Tera type your older Pokémon will have upon arrival in the Paldea region? There's no mystery: it'll correspond to that Pokémon's original typing. You can always change their Tera type by taking 50 Tera shards to the Treasure Eatery in Medali.
You'll get some Mystery Gift Pokemon with your first transfer
To celebrate the Home update, Nintendo is offering three free Pokémon as Mystery Gifts whenever you complete your first transfer into "Scarlet" and "Violet." Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly — the three Paldea starters — are all available with their corresponding hidden abilities. Nintendo wasn't clear whether you can get all three and, if not, whether you can choose between them. Either way, you'll need to use the Home app on your smartphone to receive them.
In addition, version 3.0.0 and beyond will bring new features, such as exchanging Pokémon Home Points for League Points, the choice currency for crafting TMs, and acquiring training-related items across Paldea. You'll automatically receive Home Points based on the amount of Pokémon you have stored there. We're also getting per-game details, allowing you to view each Pokemon's details as they appeared in specific games.
Perhaps the biggest change is being able to update a Pokemon's moveset within Pokémon Home before transferring them to your game of choice. You'll only be able to choose from moves it's learned until that point, and the only moves you can assign are those learnable from "Sword" and "Shield" onward.
Next up for "Scarlet" and "Violet" are new expansions set to arrive later this year. It'll be a two-part release that adds 230 Pokemon, so hopefully, you can bring most of the friends from Home you'd previously been forced to abandon.