A recent Pokemon HOME leak has fans speculating that the cloud-storage app will finally introduce backwards compatibility, meaning players will be allowed to send Generation 9 Pokemon back to Generation 8 games.
Pokemon Home is a free mobile and Nintendo Switch app that was released back in February 2020. Pokemon Home’s main function is as a cloud-based storage area for people to store Pokemon they have evolved and found throughout their recent experiences.
Currently, the games that Pokemon Home supports are the following:
- Pokemon Sword & Pokemon Shield
- Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
- Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Pokemon Shining Pearl
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
Pokemon stored in HOME can only be transferred over to games that are newer, however. For example, a Pokemon caught in Sword & Shield can be brought forward to Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl but the reverse is not possible at this stage.
New leak hints at backwards compatibility for Pokemon HOME app
However, a recent leak, which has garnered major attention on Reddit, has fans of the Nintendo franchise speculating that HOME will soon become backwards compatible. The leak in question was posted on Twitter by Khu’s Fashionable Hat, and includes an image of the Time Capsule from older Pokemon games.
— Khu Beating Around The Bush (@Riddler_Khu) May 6, 2023
This device was a mechanic in Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal that allowed players to trade Pokemon back in time to Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Meaning that this leak could be hinting that players will be able to transport their Generation 9 Pokemon back to Generation 8 games.
However, it is likely that if this does happen, players will only be able to go as far back as Generation 8 given that all Pokemon from older titles were saved via the previously used Pokemon bank app.
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A feature that is no longer updated thanks to the closing of the Nintendo Eshop on DS consoles. Across the Reddit thread, Pokemon fans have begun speculating what this could mean for the future of Pokemon and whether or not there is any merit to this leak.
Pokemon fans excited by the chance to send Pokemon back and forth
One user wrote, “Backwards compatibility between gen 8 and 9 games would be incredible mainly because trade evolutions like Scizor can be easily done in Legends Arceus and I can use the Pokemon/shiny in SwSh that I catch in SV.”
Another added, “You could always send Pokemon forward, but it’s been literally forever since we were allowed to send them backward. It’s important to note that we cannot obtain Hisuian evolutions that don’t have a unique requirement. If Home becomes backwards compatible, we can breed/catch these Pokemon in SV and then send them over to PLA to evolve them.”
Time will tell if backwards compatibility for Pokemon HOME is introduced. However, if and when it is, we’ll be sure to keep you updated on all the details here at Dexerto.
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