Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are 2022 role-playing video games created by Game Freak and released by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for the Nintendo Switch. These games are the first in the ninth generation of the Pokémon video game series. They were announced in February 2022 and released on November 18, 2022. Later, the games received a downloadable content (DLC) expansion called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. The first part of the DLC, The Teal Mask, was released on September 13, 2023, and the second part, The Indigo Disk, was released on December 14, 2023. A post-game expansion called Mochi Mayhem, which serves as the conclusion to the DLC and the main games, was released on January 11, 2024.
The games are set in the Paldea Region, which is inspired by the Iberian Peninsula. Unlike earlier Pokémon games, these titles feature an open world. Players can complete three separate storylines. The games introduce 120 new Pokémon, two new regional forms, and special creatures called Paradox Pokémon. They also introduce the Terastal phenomenon, which allows a Pokémon to change into its unique "Tera Type." The games keep features from previous modern Pokémon games, such as large open areas and Pokémon that appear in the main game world.
Development of Scarlet and Violet began right after the release of their predecessors, Pokémon Sword and Shield. Game Freak wanted to use a new art style for the games, combining more realistic world designs with stylized character designs. Models and animations for Pokémon were redesigned to match this new artistic style.
Scarlet and Violet received average reviews from critics. Some praised the story, while others pointed out technical issues. The games sold over 10 million copies in their first three days, making them Nintendo's largest launch ever, and over 28 million copies by December 2025. A free update for the games on Nintendo Switch 2, which included improved visuals, performance, and other changes, was released on June 5, 2025.
Gameplay
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet use a similar way of playing as earlier games. Players catch and trade Pokémon, then use them to explore and battle other trainers. A new feature allows players to choose to fight trainers on paths. The games add 112 new Pokémon, including three starter Pokémon—Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly—which players get first, and two legendary Pokémon, Koraidon and Miraidon, who travel with players throughout the game.
Scarlet and Violet have open worlds that mix cities and open wilderness without clear borders, unlike earlier games. Players can ride Koraidon or Miraidon, depending on the game version, to move around and use special abilities to travel across Paldea. A new "Auto Battle" feature lets players send Pokémon to fight without entering turn-based battles. Players can also choose from three story routes, and tasks within each route can be completed in any order.
Each route has different goals. The first route, Victory Road, has players defeat Gym Leaders in battles to earn badges. Gyms can be fought in any order, and after earning eight badges, players battle the Elite Four and the Top Champion, Geeta. The second route, Path of Legends, involves hunting powerful "Titan Pokémon," such as Klawf, Bombirdier, Orthworm, Great Tusk (in Scarlet), Iron Treads (in Violet), and Dondozo. Defeating these Pokémon gives players Herba Mystica items, which improve their mount’s abilities. The third route, Starfall Street, has players fight Team Star, a group of rebellious students. Players must defeat five Team Star bases to face the route’s final boss. After completing all three routes, players unlock a fourth route that finishes the game’s story.
The games introduce the Terastal phenomenon, which changes Pokémon’s appearance and type to match their "Tera Type." This affects their strengths and weaknesses. A special move called Tera Blast becomes the same type as the Pokémon’s Tera Type when used by a Terastallized Pokémon. Players can change their Pokémon’s Tera Types. Wild Terastallized Pokémon can be fought in "Tera Raids," where up to four players battle a Terastallized Pokémon under a time limit. Each player uses one Pokémon, and if their Pokémon is knocked out, the time remaining decreases. Players can catch the raid boss after defeating it and team up with others online.
The games add new features, such as a "picnic" mode where players interact with their Pokémon, make sandwiches that give in-game benefits, and breed Pokémon to get eggs. Up to four players can join picnics online. Players can also connect with others over the internet in "Union Circles," where up to four players explore the game world together. Online features allow trading and battling with other players.
Plot
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet take place in the Paldea Region of the Pokémon universe, which seems to be similar to the Iberian Peninsula. The region has many different types of areas, such as lakes, wastelands, and mountain ranges. A large crater, called the Great Crater of Paldea, is located in the center of the region. Inside the crater is an area named Area Zero.
In Scarlet and Violet, the player attends either the Naranja (Scarlet) or Uva (Violet) Academy. The academy has an annual event called the "Treasure Hunt," which encourages students to find something they value by exploring the region. After meeting either the Legendary Pokémon Koraidon or Miraidon, who joins the player even though it can no longer battle, the player is asked to complete three stories: Victory Road, Starfall Street, and Path of Legends.
In Victory Road, Nemona—a Trainer ranked as a Champion who often battles the player—asks the player to complete the Paldea region’s eight Gyms. After defeating the leaders of each Gym, the player can become a Champion by beating the region’s Elite Four and the Top Champion, Geeta. Once the player reaches Champion rank, Nemona challenges them to a final battle, which the player wins.
In Path of Legends, Arven asks the player to help find the five legendary Herba Mystica. To obtain each Herba Mystica, the player and Arven work together to defeat "Titan Pokémon"—very large Pokémon that gain power from the Herba Mystica. Arven explains that he wants to use the Herba Mystica to heal his injured pet Mabosstiff, who was hurt by a Pokémon in Area Zero, where his parent works. His parent is either Professor Sada (Scarlet) or Professor Turo (Violet). After defeating all five Titans, Arven and the player use the Herba Mystica to heal Mabosstiff and restore Koraidon/Miraidon’s lost powers. Arven then challenges the player to a final battle before being called by the professor to go to Area Zero with either the Scarlet or Violet Book. Arven decides they need to find more allies before entering Area Zero.
In Starfall Street, the player helps a shy schoolgirl named Penny stand up to Team Star, a group that bullies students at the academy. Cassiopeia, the founder of Team Star, is also Penny’s secret identity. She asks the player to join "Operation Starfall," which aims to stop Team Star by defeating its five squad bosses. The player is helped by Clavell, the academy director, who disguises himself as a student named Clive to investigate Team Star’s origins, and Penny, who wants to guide the player as Cassiopeia. They learn that Team Star was created to stop bullying, not cause it. A past conflict with bullies led to the bullies leaving the academy and some staff members resigning. After defeating all squad bosses, Penny reveals her identity and challenges the player to a battle. After losing, Clavell exposes his disguise and offers Team Star a chance to make peace, though he requires them to do community service for breaking rules.
After choosing Nemona and Penny as allies, Arven and the player travel to the Zero Lab, the professor’s laboratory in Area Zero. This unlocks the final story, The Way Home. Inside, they meet Paradox Pokémon—relatives of Pokémon from either the ancient past (Scarlet) or far future (Violet). Koraidon and Miraidon are revealed to be Paradox Pokémon, related to Cyclizar, and were driven out of Area Zero after losing a battle to another, more aggressive Koraidon/Miraidon. When they reach the laboratory, the professor reveals themselves to be an AI that replaced the real professor, who died in a lab accident before the game’s events. The AI explains that the original professor built a time machine to retrieve Paradox Pokémon and insists on keeping it running. The AI tells the player to shut down the time machine to protect Paldea’s environment, but its programming forces it to fight the player. After the player defeats the AI, the time machine’s security system stops Poké Balls not registered under Sada/Turo’s ID, leaving the player to rely only on Koraidon or Miraidon to defeat the AI. This causes the time machine to fail, and the AI travels to another time to allow its destruction, apologizing to Arven for the original professor neglecting him as a child before leaving.
After returning to the academy, Nemona, Clavell, and Geeta organize a Pokémon battling tournament between faculty and students. After competing in all previous Gyms, the player wins the tournament.
Development
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet began development in late 2019, around the same time Pokémon Sword and Shield was released. During development, Game Freak, the game’s developers, wanted to create a more realistic and stylized look for the games. This included using more detailed textures and character designs. Keiichi Maezawa, a member of Game Freak, explained at a conference that this approach aimed to make the games feel more connected to the real world. To increase realism, natural sounds were added to the games’ overworld. While this feature existed in earlier games, the developers wanted to improve the variety and quality of these sounds for future games. They created a program called "PokeSynth" to help generate sounds using Pokémon cries. Team members also visited forests and zoos to test how realistic Pokémon sounds would be in the game and studied how animals change their vocalizations in different situations. They grouped Pokémon based on their characteristics to decide what sounds each species would make.
Pokémon models in the games were completely redesigned. Game Freak first created blueprints and sent materials and movement instructions to the model team, who built the models from those materials. After models were created, meetings were held to finalize other details, such as facial expressions and animations. Models were altered with unique textures to show different personalities, and special textures were used to represent a Pokémon’s Terastallized state. Lighting and angles were carefully chosen to highlight this effect. Once a Pokémon’s actions and traits were decided, test models were made. After approval, movements for each species were finalized. Many joint movements were changed during development based on feedback from animation artists. Animations were created using an in-house program.
Some Pokémon reused animations from earlier games, even though they had new models and rigs. This caused challenges, as the team had to find the most efficient way to reuse animations. Unlike earlier games, all Pokémon models now had detailed facial features instead of using textures to show expressions. The team focused on making each model reflect a Pokémon’s personality and fit the game’s artistic style. Pokémon inspired by real-world objects or animals used elements from those inspirations in their animations. The animation team researched which sources would work best for each species. Pokémon that looked like inanimate objects were designed to appear more lifelike. New lighting effects were added to highlight Pokémon, and many were adjusted to ensure their idle animations were visible and interesting during battles. The developers wanted Pokémon to look visually appealing from all camera angles in the game.
The game’s soundtrack was created by several composers. Teruo Taniguchi, who worked on Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, composed music for Team Star. Go Ichinose, a longtime series composer, handled music for the Path of Legends story and a battle track against the Ruinous Quartet. Junichi Masuda composed the Victory Road path’s music, while Minako Adachi and Hitomi Sato created other tracks for the route. The soundtrack was officially released in February 2024 and became available on Nintendo Music in October 2024. Additional music was created by Toby Fox, known for Undertale.
English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran collaborated with the games for the song "Celestial." Sheeran has been a fan of the series since childhood and previously worked with Pokémon Go in 2021. "Celestial" is the first song in the series with lyrics. The music video for "Celestial," released on September 29, 2022, was directed by Yuichi Kodama and features Sheeran interacting with sketch-style Pokémon, including a Snorlax and a Lapras. The Pokémon designs were drawn by art director Yu Nagaba, who mimicked how Sheeran drew Pokémon as a child. "Celestial" plays in the end credits of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and was later remixed by Toby Fox for the game’s DLC expansions. Unlike other songs, "Celestial" is not included in the official soundtrack release for the game.
Marketing and release
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were introduced during a Pokémon Presents event on 27 February 2022. A trailer showed the three starter Pokémon: Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly. On 1 June 2022, a second trailer revealed Koraidon and Miraidon, more gameplay, and new Pokémon such as Smoliv, Lechonk, and Pawmi. It also introduced characters Nemona, Sada, and Turo. On 3 August 2022, a third trailer and overview trailer were released during another Pokémon Presents event. These showed two new Pokémon, the region’s name, Terastallization, and other details. A fourth trailer, released on 7 September 2022, explained the three story paths players could choose and introduced three new Pokémon. Characters Mela, Brassius, and Geeta were also revealed.
During the closing ceremony of the 2022 Pokémon World Championships on 21 August 2022, a new trailer showed a new Pokémon, Cyclizar, and new items for competitive play. On 29 September 2022, singer Ed Sheeran released a song titled "Celestial" with The Pokémon Company. The song appeared in the game’s credits. On 6 October 2022, a 14-minute trailer highlighted how four players could take different story paths and introduced Farigiraf, the evolution of Girafarig. Before the games launched, The Pokémon Company shared in-universe videos, such as a camera trap revealing Grafaiai, a web seminar revealing Wiglett, a livestream revealing Bellibolt, and a found footage trailer revealing Greavard. On 4 November 2022, a special Nintendo Switch OLED model with themed artwork was released. On 11 November 2022, a Splatfest in Splatoon 3 was held based on the three starter Pokémon types.
Before the games launched, some in-game content was leaked. Images of unrevealed characters and Pokémon appeared online as early as July. Gimmighoul was leaked in early November through a datamine of Pokémon Go after it was accidentally shown in a pre-release trailer. About 72 Pokémon were leaked days before the games’ release, spreading quickly on social media. ROMs of the games were leaked on 4chan, and players livestreamed the games before release. Nintendo tried to remove these leaks, but others reposted the information.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet were released worldwide on 18 November 2022. The games had many technical problems, including bugs and glitches. On 1 December 2022, Nintendo apologized and released an update to fix some issues. Another update in February 2023 fixed more bugs but caused a rare problem that corrupted save files. A third update in April 2023 fixed additional bugs.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are among the Nintendo Switch games that will have a free upgrade for the Nintendo Switch 2. In June 2025, the Nintendo Today! app showed gameplay footage of the Switch 2 upgrade, showing better image quality and a 60 FPS frame rate.
On 27 February 2023, a Pokémon Day presentation announced a downloadable expansion pack called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, which included two DLCs: The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk. The Teal Mask, released on 13 September 2023, focused on the Legendary Pokémon Ogerpon. The Indigo Disk, released on 14 December 2023, focused on the Legendary Pokémon Terapagos. The DLCs added over 230 returning Pokémon, including new ones like Poltchageist and new evolutions for Applin and Duraludon.
In The Teal Mask, players go on a school trip to the land of Kitakami, tied to the legend of Momotarō, while uncovering a local mystery. In The Indigo Disk, players study at Blueberry Academy and later return to Area Zero to finish the story. On 11 January 2024, an epilogue called Mochi Mayhem was released, allowing players to return to Kitakami to catch the Mythical Pokémon Pecharunt.
After release, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet became compatible with Pokémon Home, a cloud storage system that lets players save Pokémon from the games and transfer Pokémon from older games into them. The games also became compatible with Pokémon Go in 2023, allowing players to send postcards between the games. This let players in Pokémon Go encounter a special form of Gimmighoul, while players in Scarlet and Violet could encounter special forms of Vivillon. Videos featuring characters from both games discussing Gimmighoul were released before the compatibility announcement.
The anime series Pokémon Horizons: The Series includes connections to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, with locations, characters, and Pokémon from the games appearing in the series. In August 2023, a limited 4-episode web series called Pokémon: Paldean Winds was announced during a Pokémon Presents event. It premiered on YouTube on 6 September 2023 and ended on 13 December 2023. Produced by Wit Studio, it is based on the Paldea region and follows different Academy students overcoming challenges.
On 16 November 2023, pop duo Yoasobi and The Pokémon Company announced a song called "Biri-Biri" to celebrate the games’ first anniversary. The song was released in Japanese and English on 18 November 2023, along with a music video. The video focuses on Nemona and a transfer student named Anna, who go on a quest to find their "treasure." The song was inspired by a short story written by Ayano Takeda and was later performed live by Yoasobi.
Reception
Scarlet and Violet received "mixed or average reviews" according to the review aggregator website Metacritic, making them the lowest-rated mainline series Pokémon games. Another review aggregator, OpenCritic, assessed that the games received fair approval, with 48% of critics recommending them.
GameSpot writer Jake Dekker described the non-linear structure of the games as their "strength." Nintendo Life praised the experience for capturing the "real magic" of the original Pokémon games, Red and Blue. The publication also called the story "wholesome" and noted it included "genuinely tender moments." IGN writer Rebekah Valentine found the new open-world gameplay style enjoyable and highlighted features like Tera Raids and new online mechanics. However, she criticized the games for lacking polish and depth in areas such as online features and open-world exploration.
Joel Franey of GamesRadar+ criticized the open-world design for being "aimless" and lacking clear goals. He praised other aspects, such as the music and user-interface improvements. Kenneth Shepard of Polygon praised features like Terastallization, which improved battle strategy, and the game's writing. He criticized the games for removing quality-of-life features from the previous game, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and for not clearly explaining the order of major story events.
Tom Regan of The Guardian called the games a fun take on the series but criticized their technical and graphical issues. Jason Faulkner of GameRevolution criticized the games' textures, model collision, performance, and described the progression as "awkward and semi-linear" despite the open-world design. Lea Irion of 4Players said the games showed the Pokémon franchise was becoming less ambitious and called them "disappointingly average." Willem Hilhorst of Nintendo World Report criticized the games for removing long-standing features and lacking polish, which he said made them difficult to enjoy. He praised the story but found the games unappealing to both new and returning players.
Publications criticized the games for graphical glitches and poor performance. The graphics were considered lackluster compared to other Nintendo Switch titles, such as Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Jhaan Ekler of The Washington Post noted that fans and critics were unhappy with the graphics, which had not improved from the franchise's history of weak graphical design. Oliver Mackenzie of Eurogamer called the games graphically low quality, calling them downgrades from Pokémon Legends: Arceus and "comprehensive technical failures" compared to other Switch games. Rebekah Valentine of IGN said the games' innovative design was weakened by technical and graphical issues. Due to performance problems, some players requested refunds, which Nintendo granted in most cases. As a result, The Pokémon Company's COO, Takato Utsunomiya, said the company would review the series' release schedule.
According to The Pokémon Company, Scarlet and Violet were the most pre-ordered titles in the series' history. Within three days of release, the games sold over 10 million copies worldwide, including 4.05 million in Japan. This was the highest three-day sales figure for any Nintendo platform software and the best launch for any console-exclusive game in history. The games were the best-selling video game titles of 2022 in Japan. By June 2025, the games had sold 27.15 million copies, making them the second-best-selling Pokémon titles and the sixth-best-selling Switch titles. As of 2026, the games had sold 8.66 million copies in Japan, making them the second-best-selling Pokémon titles in Japan behind Red and Green.