Pokémon Winds and Waves Announced for Switch 2 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 February 2026 / 2,856 Views
Publisher The Pokemon Company and developer Game Freak have announced Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves for the Nintendo Switch 2. Both games will launch worldwide in 2027.
This new generation of Pokémon games features three new starters - the Grass-type Browt, the Fire-type Pombon, and the Water-type Gecqua. There will also be a special Pikachu.
View the announcement trailer below:
Read details on the game via Pokemon.com below:
The new Pokémon Presents revealed an exciting trailer for Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves, upcoming entries in the Pokémon video game series. Developed by GAME FREAK exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2, these new titles feature an open world to explore, with beautiful windswept islands and a vast ocean with glittering waves. The Pokémon that live in harmony with this region’s lush environment have developed their own unique ecosystems. During this adventure, you’ll team up with all kinds of Pokémon to overcome both the difficult road ahead and even the forces of nature that block your path at times.
Your main character will sport a different outfit depending on which version of the game you play—and of course, you’ll set out with one of three first partner Pokémon. Will you choose a Grass type by partnering with Browt, the lively but clumsy Bean Chick Pokémon? Or perhaps you’ll heat things up with a Fire type by picking Pombon, the guileless and friendly Puppy Pokémon. If Water types are more your speed, then the intelligent Water Gecko Pokémon, Gecqua, might be the partner for you.
The trailer also showed off a pair of special Pikachu with a brand-new look. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to learn how Mr. Windychu and Ms. Wavychu will be involved in the adventure.
Additionally, it was announced that beginning with Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves, Brazilian Portuguese will officially be supported as a language players can choose. Now, even more fans around the world will be able to play this new adventure in their native language!
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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And the chances of PS5 outselling Switch 2 in 20226 just skyrocket, no pokemon in 2026.
Don't be so sure. We don't know the full release schedule of any other big games this year.
GTA6 is coming, PS5 wins
GTA6 will be overrated just like it's predecessor.
That's your opinion though. The FACT is that it's an extremely popular franchise with a strong influence when it comes to getting people to buy consoles.
That's your opinion though. The FACT is the whole GTA franchise is not even close to Pokemon which is THE highest grossing media franchise. FACTS.
Pokemon has sold 480M copies. Additionally, Pokemon has generated about $115 billion in revenue, while GTA has generated $10 billion.
Those are counting all the games ever, remakes, several spinoff series, all of it.
I've pointed out that even all 9 mainline generation games have already been outsold by GTA V, actually when generation 10 is out and done, even if it sells as much as the best gamss in the series, all those 10 mainline generation games will still be outsold by GTA V alone.
GTA VI versus Winds and Waves won't be even a remotely close comparison, you need all mainlines games ever to compare to the last GTA game in sales.
and it will still sell 100+ million and the ps5 will outsell the switch 2 this year. you said dont be to sure? im 100% sure
GTA will run into the everybody friendly 3D Mario for the holidays ;)
I want that grumpy grass bird. Hopefully a Switch 2 lite is released at the same time.
Are they really afraid of GTA VI?
Nintendo/TPC/GF could not care less about GTA VI.
They're giving Winds/Waves a five-year cycle because Pokemon CLEARLY needs it.
The fact that it's 2027 should be promising but... Somehow it still looks mostly the same despite taking 66 % longer and being on stronger hardware
I guess they put more focus on making it run well. Probably the right call.
Graphically it's a big leap over the previous games... But comparatively it's just a good looking Switch 1 game with long draw distances.
At-least it's not an offensively bad looking game this time around.
They are definitely using that stronger hardware to pickup their lack of optimization.
Wtf are you talking about it is an absolutely gigantic leap over scar/vio. Huge improvements on everything.
No brother.
The texture quality in terms of detail and resolution are poor by Switch 1 standards. The anistropic filtering setting is low.
It looks better than the Switch 1 Pokemon games, but that doesnt mean much given how poor those games were graphically.
Youre equating better than Scarlet and Violet to good. But outside of that narrow comparison when looking at things across the board It looks decent/ok at best.
You can love Pokemon and still call out the Pokemon Company/Game Freak when standards arent as high as they should be.
Lets hope they use this extra year and a half of development time to address those awful environmental textures and filtering.
^Pretty much this. And frankly even though the improvements are obviously there it's still baby steps. The Pokemon themselves still look damn close to the last two generations despite a larger leap in power than PS3 to PS4. I honestly can't tell if it's still the same 3D models and if they had 5 years and didn't make new ones when it was already controversial by Sword and Shield, yeah.... not gonna give them a pass for that.
Looks like a better performing, slightly better looking Scarlet and Violet. The environmental textures are still muddy and low res. In that respect they dont look remarkably better than the Switch 1 Pokemon games. Thats not great given how much more RAM Switch 2 has
Nah. We all just have different standards. If this is the quality youre happy with from the worlds largest media franchise then im happy for you.
For me however, I expect better.
The art design is an improvement with everything looking more cohesive. Theres greater geometric density in the environments, much better water and the lighting model is more complex. So theres no denying theres improvements. But not to the level youd expect from a generational shift to a much more powerful platform.
The environmental textures are muddy and low resolution. Theyre of a quality that would be bad for Switch 1.
Finally!
A mainline Pokemon game that looks like it belongs in THIS generation!
And it's got a five-year dev cycle, meaning more time to cook. Even better!
Game Freak and The Pokemon Company finally listened!
I wouldn't say it "belongs" in this generation... It is certainly a step behind other games visually like Cyberpunk, Hogwarts Legacy, StarWars Outlaws, Doom and more.
But it does bring things forwards enough that it's not as offensive.
And I think that's the key that Gamefreak have missed in the last several releases... Having their games look "good enough".
Didn't we already have a region like this in Sun and Moon?
Like Southeast Asia? No.
I thought it was more like Polynesia.
From the leaks (which appear to be true, based on the info we got today), the region seems to be based on Indonesia, Malaysia, and perhaps a couple of surrounding countries. Islands, for sure, but very different from Hawaii.
Sun and Moon was based off Hawaii.
Just off the trailer alone and seeing the trainers wearing cowboy hats, I'm thinking coastal Australia
Looks very mediocre
