Pokémon Legends: Z-A And Pokémon HOME Connectivity Scheduled For 2026

@JohnnyMind It only happened for Pokemon GO, Pokemon Bank (Gen 6/7) and I think maybe Pokemon Lets Go.

Sword and Shield, Scarlet and Violet, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Legends Arceus all let you go back and forth between them all. And one of those used completely different stats for the game.

So I dunno what ZA is doing to Pokemon data that's so different. But it's not the first time. It famously happened going to Gen 3.

Reminder that home was specifically designed in a way that allows you to import pokemon from future games to previous ones by storing their movesets to their respective games.

You can catch a shiny pokemon in SV and use it in sword if you wanted to right now. Infact I did that in my BDSP shiny latias hunt earlier this week since its easier to teambuild in SV (and now I definitely don't want to use this latias in Z-A until champions... or not at all)

Z-A not only returns the generational lock outs, but also there isn't a mainline series game to even use Z-A pokemon other than Z-A which to most is closer to a spin off than an actual main line game (which champions is supposed to basically serve the purpose of keeping the main line mechanics somewhere while games do whatever now.). So if you were one of the few who happened to do some new-mega shiny hunts... well I would not recommended transferring them until champions assuming home patch and champions aren't released as a pair.

You pay $15 yearly to move your pokemon to Z-A and not be able to use them for traditional battling anywhere until champions releases, and anything you catch in Z-A will not be able to travel back for ribbons and such.

I was happy with how S/V turned out but Z-A isn't even out and I suddenly don't like the legends direction anymore... I loved arceus but what ZA is doing sucks.

@Haruki_NLI > So I dunno what ZA is doing to Pokemon data that's so different.

Allegedly them supporting latin-american language is unique and other games don't support it so they dont want latin-american language pokemon transferred to games that don't recognize it.

Which still is dumb cause thats what patches were supposed to be for and they could easily have home placeholder them in a different language. They also never fixed spinda/nincada in home from BDSP either.

The annoying part they adding just 1 more Big Language and there is at least 1 more Big Language I quickly could think of it that they could added, but they not adding it due Country that it originates started ... days before 2022 Pokémon day and they still didn't ended it. So in the distant future we will have more these situations where they finally introduces just 1 or 2 new Languages instead bunch of then and that again limits transfer between games. So they need next time to do a bunch of New Big Languages instead of 1 or 2 if they lazy out with transfer limitations due New Languages.

@Araquanid bold of you to assume that Gamefreak can figure out how to patch in new flags for Pokémon. They've got great artists but everything else is severely lacking, ESPECIALLY the actual programming expertise..

@Araquanid Home is and was originally designed to allow you to easily move old Pokémon to newer games. That you can transfer backwards in some of them is not it's main feature.

@Dom_31 Pokémon home is not created by GameFreak but by Ilca.

Pokemon Home has a built-in method to handle cross-game compatibility issues for Pokemon data. What do you mean this is a problem again?

That's okay, I decided to cancel my Legends pre-order anyway due to the sour taste that DLC announcement left me with. I feel like I'm now fully done with the main games of this series. I'll stick with potentially fun spin-off games and the past main entries that I do enjoy from here on out. They absolutely lost me now.

Well, this is not the greatest situation. We'll, I might just be giving up on getting the game anyway depending on the situation with the limited time PVP reward Kalos starter Mega Stones.

@Haruki_NLI From what I keep hearing online, apparently Gamefreak are planning on removing the Individual Values (IV) from Pokemon. To which some are already calling Z-A and Champions as part of Gen 10's lineup of spinoffs.
My personal guess as to the why is that this is GF's attempt to combat hacked Pokemon after what happened at that tournament, and so that it's easier for people to get into VGC.

Don't understand the not being able to go back and forth. Why even have a single application at that point? Wasn't home designed to be a final solution so we didnt have to deal with pal park, transporter, and a poke bank every generation? And why in the world is home never ready by release? It's data storage for a junior dev not some Herculean project for a team of 8. What's worse is how much they want to charge for Home and they can't handle such simple things. Yes I'm ranting but its so frustrating to have all these caveats

@NeoKoala Legends Z-A is Generation IX. I don't know where you're get this idea from but it's pretty obvious.

@Ulysses Pokemon ZA is essentially a Pokemon XY spin-off.
Its not a new generational game. That will be next year (hopefully).

Like others already said. Pokemon ZA apparently adds a new language region, that is not available in the other Pokemon games and Pokemon Home.

The question should be, why Pokemon Home isnt ready for it by the time Pokemon ZA releases? Its developed and maintained by a different company. Surely they dont need to wait until ZA releases, before they are allowed to start working on a new Pokemon Home update.