Some Pokémon news is on the way tomorrow. The Pokémon Company has set a special live broadcast for Tuesday, September 29, at 9 a.m. Eastern time.
Players who purchased the “expansion pass” for Pokémon Sword and Shield will receive two separate DLC bundles — The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra — the first of which launched back in June. The Crown Tundra is scheduled for a late 2020 release, so a more concrete release date is probably a big part of tomorrow’s news.
“Get ready, Trainers,” the YouTube listing for the broadcast reads. “We’ve got updates for you about [the upcoming] Pokémon Sword Expansion Pass and Pokémon Shield Expansion Pass.” The wording here is interesting, though it could be a mistranslation or a simple rush job.
As written, however, it sort of implies that another, post-Crown Tundra expansion pass could follow the one that’s currently for sale in the Nintendo eShop. If COVID-19 has caused an internal delay for the Pokémon Company teams in charge of whatever the next big Pokémon titles are, it’s possible that more DLC could fill that gap.
In any case, The Crown Tundra promises to add 100 “returning” Pokémon from previous games, so there’s lots of potential for big Pokémon news tomorrow. The livestream may simply be a deep dive into what The Crown Tundra has to offer. But a second expansion pass would make for a fun tease either way.
Sword and Shield are fantastic games, and the success of the expansion pass shows that players will keep coming back if you give them a reason to. If the next Pokémon game is a long ways off, why not keep the DLC coming, too?