| Pokémon Pokopia | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Overview
What is Pokémon Pokopia Bubbly Basin DLC?
Pokémon Pokopia: Bubbly Basin DLC is the first DLC in the cozy life simulation game of the same title by Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force and Gamefreak for the Nintendo Switch 2. Released on August 5, 2026, it takes players under the sea in an expansive new area called the Bubbly Basin, full of new Pokémon and collectibles to discover, and a whole new place to revive.
In Pokopia, players take on the role of a Ditto to restore certain locations from ruin by building habitats and shape it into a home for fellow Pokémon. Ditto can gather, build, craft, and, by learning all sorts of moves from its peers, terraform the island. With a block-based sandbox world to build on and a cast of friendly creatures to interact with, players can grow their community and attract even more Pokémon as development and restoration continue.
Pokémon Pokopia Bubbly Basin DLC features:
⚫︎ New Underwater Town To Thrive In
⚫︎ New Requests To Take
⚫︎ Dozens of New Pokémon
⚫︎ New Collectibles and Outfits
⚫︎ The Deep Sea To Explore
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Switch 2 |
Switch 2 |
||||
| $34.99 (DLC Only) |
$104.99 (Base Game + DLC) |
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Pokémon Pokopia Bubbly Basin DLC Review: The Seaweed Is Always Greener
Hotter Under the Water
Pokémon Pokopia made incredible waves back in March, blending together cozy building simulator ala Minecraft and Animal Crossing with the ever-famous creature-collector Pokémon IP. Thousands of people across the globe were both smitten and heartbroken by the adorably cute visuals and chill gameplay, with the undercurrent of a darker narrative looming in the background. It’s me, I was definitely one of those people—and so were several of my fellow writers here in Game8, too. We gave Pokémon Pokopia a solid 94 out of 100, praising it as an addictive spinoff—the very best, like no spinoff ever was, despite its weaknesses.
And while most players have already finished up the main story and called it a day or have stepped away from creating their Pokémon paradise to breathe (burnout is definitely real), the first wave of the Expansion Pass DLC is here to bring them all back. The Bubbly Basin DLC has just arrived, bringing with it a literal treasure trove of content and improvements to get back into the Pokopia groove.
Under the Sea in The Bubbly Basin
As it says right on its title, the Bubbly Basin DLC takes you to the eponymous underwater town in a bid to restore it back to its lively, lived in version, as requested by the Pokémon Popplio. Its narrative is simple, and closely follows what you have already done for the two previous areas (or more, if you’re already finished with the game)—stumble upon a desolate, abandoned town, get tasked to restore it to its former glory by recruiting Pokémon to come live there, and create a safe haven for them to thrive in, and also so that humans, supposedly, can come back to a prospering, functional world. Same old, but different flavor.
Bubbly Basin is set in the remains of Cerulean City—quite fitting for what was once the home of the water-themed Cerulean Gym headed by Misty. Familiar locations like the Nugget Bridge, Bike Shop, Cerulean Gym, Cerulean Cave, and Bill’s House appear as little easter eggs for anyone who’s played the previous mainline games. In the distant future at Pokopia’s present, it sits completely submerged under the sea, covered in sand and algae, forgotten to time.
But all in a day’s work for our hard-working Ditto. It’s time to make another town shine and sparkle!
Same, But Feels Better
Being a DLC, it doesn’t completely overhaul the existing gameplay system but serves to enhance it. Terraforming, crafting, building, mining, all done with snappy and intuitive controls: everything’s still there and completely intact, just with new things to craft, new skills, and better exploration and building mechanics.
For instance, you get a new watermelon "vegetable" (Pokopia said it, not me) crop to grow like your Beans and Tomatoes and Wheat. They are cut into slices by Chop-specialty Pokémon, the familiar mechanic of asking others to do something for you still very much in place. Then, the fresh slices of watermelon can be used to create the new Smoothie "dish" made in a blender. Rinse and repeat.
Nothing inherently new, but is different visually, and sometimes that’s all the "Wow" you need without being too overwhelming. It’s the routine players are used to, with a new coat of paint. Tons of new emotes, collectibles, furniture, building blocks, and outfits, all ripe for the picking and creating. Nevertheless, there are several mechanics also received a direct upgrade here and there.
Water Mobility Makes You Feel Like A Mermaid
And one of the most obvious ones is the ability to breathe and swim freely underwater, and even comes with a massive exploration upgrade—in mechanics and in map. You can swim through areas with ease, not requiring any sort of "platforming" between blocks to reach the tops of the undersea cliffs or building a stairway with your leftover sand blocks to get to the top (haha). Just jump to your heart’s content, and it will let you soar up the water.
This mobility is a godsend for those who like building their houses from scratch, and haven’t gotten far enough in the game to have the Magnet Rise ability. No need for some makeshift "scaffolding" to construct that pretty roof—only in Bubbly Basin, of course. And later on, when you get to unlock the blender to create smoothies, you can amp up that mobility with the ability to transform into Lapras and zoom through the water at even faster speeds. It’s basically an easier to get Glide (more Fly, really) ability while in the Bubbly Basin realm.
The freeform moving extends to building too. Bubbly Basin introduces Buoyant Blocks, which allow you to build almost anywhere in the underwater area without being constrained to the land. That also means more houses, more structures to build if you so wish, perfect for an underwater sea kingdom. With how big the map seems to be, you can probably give each Pokémon one house if you put your heart into it.
Say Goodbye To Storage and Wiring Woes
The DLC just keeps it coming with improved gameplay mechanics. Two of the new features I find the most useful is the addition of the Portal Pod, which allows what is essentially shared cloud storage of up to 80 items across all the Portal Pods, and the all-new and shiny wireless power-transmitter posts.
Two Free Portal Pods From The Get Go
Storage has long been a tedious issue in Pokopia. Players had four different areas with no way to move things efficiently—you had to move them manually, teleport to and fro from house to house, or have stockpiles of all basic materials in every area which can take some time. With the introduction of the Portal Pod, those worries are now gone.
Okay, hear me out. The storage solution is part of the free 2.0 update, which every single Pokopia player gets. So why is this part of the review? Convenience—acquiring the Portal Pods without the DLC can prove to be a challenge. It requires your Palette Town environment level to be at Level 8, which is pretty steep for those who put all their resources into fixing the main areas instead and completely ignored Palette Town. The DLC, however, gives players two of them for free just by exploring. A pretty neat trade-off instead of spending a lot of hours trying to up that environment level again, I’d say.
A Wireless Power Transmitter Pole By Default
The wireless power-transmitter post from the Bubbly Basin DLC is a godsend. No more of those pesky wires ruining the perfect view of your town. Yes, I know that the cube-shaped wireless power transmitter is already a thing, but it does require looking for a certain Pokémon only available in the final area, which leaves players who haven’t gotten there yet with no other option (okay, some daring players early on made underground electric pole systems, but that’s tedious as hell—and I digress).
The pole version, though, is easily obtainable through a hard-to-miss request from the DLC—the Pokémon themselves sits right in front of the Pokémon Center, after all. They give you the recipe almost ASAP since it’s what’s needed to complete their request. And just like that, you can turn your budding town into a scenic spot without all those dastardly black lines ruining your pictures.
The Underwater Aesthetic Feels The Prettiest
All of the game’s locales definitely have their own charm to it, but Bubbly Basin does take the cake for being one of the most gorgeous spots. Perhaps it’s all the calming blue and the smattering of pastel colors and all, but Bubbly Basin is simply beautiful to look at.
The bright coral, the blue water, the green of the sea grapes and the seaweed, even the fluorescent glow of the tall coral and the bright red of the buildings in the outskirts don’t feel out of place. Everything blends together well, painting a picturesque view.
It also feels much more expansive than the other areas as with the introduction of Buoyant Blocks, free-form movement, and even the Deep Sea where you can go diving—there’s a lot more to appreciate and discover.
Dowsing Machine and Search Could Use Some Work
But despite all that, there’s still a few things that may have slipped under their radar. Now, the Pokémon follow AI never really failed or conked out at me and generally works really well. The Pokémon are smart and rarely, if not at all, get lost while I zoom ahead in excitement to wherever I was taking them. However, Frillish’s quest, a required one to recruit them, proved to be more tedious than it should’ve been.
You’re tasked to explore a cave with them in search of a special doll. They have the Search ability that is attuned to the Dowsing Machine—neat. We know all of that already. Unfortunately, Frillish’s radar was leading me to what technically is the shortest way there but it required some pretty tedious digging through harder blocks of rock. It was odd that it directed them there when there was a perfectly proper path we could have taken to finish the quest. It also kept getting lost with its own unclear instructions, and at one point, they even disappeared completely from sight, so much so I had to respawn at my Bubbly Basin house and find them again afterwards. Perhaps it was a one-off thing, but it was still something that could potentially lead to other glitches in the matrix.
And speaking of getting lost, my little friend Stunfisk completely disappeared once—after getting him to follow me—while I was rounding up Pokémon for a building plan, only to completely spawn at an island surface I didn’t even cross at that time. Another glitch in the matrix? Probably, but still odd. The routing AI wasn’t having a good day, probably.
Is Pokémon Pokopia Bubbly Basin DLC Worth It?
Definitely Worth Coming Back For
Whether or not you’ve left Pokopia’s world a long while ago or have been consistently playing since launch, the Bubbly Basin DLC is a great DLC to come back to. The content it brings easily adds hours to your playtime, and while it’s mostly the same at its core systems and there’s not much in the way of uniquely new storylines, the familiarity mixed with the much-needed QoL improvements make it much better.
If this is already the standard for the first DLC in the pack of three, then I’m definitely looking forward to the second and the third ones coming in the future. For now, I’ll be revamping my towns with these new items and trying to make my underwater kingdom dream a reality.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Switch 2 |
Switch 2 |
||||
| $34.99 (DLC Only) |
$104.99 (Base Game + DLC) |
||||
FAQ
How do you start the Bubbly Basin DLC?
Bubbly Basin can be accessed once you have achieved the following:
⚫︎ Reached Environment Level 5 in Bleak Beach
⚫︎ Learned Surf from Lapras
⚫︎ Learned Dive from Manaphy
Once the prerequisites have been met, Popplio will arrive in front of Bleak Beach’s Pokémon Center. Talk to them to start the quest.
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