Pokémon TCG Pocket Teases New Booster Pack Release Date With Trading Coming Next Year

Image: The Pokemon Company

We’re just a couple weeks into Pokémon TCG Pocket’s life out in the wild and the devs behind the hit mobile card game adaptation have already teased some big upcoming plans. Those include new booster packs before the end of the year, the arrival of trading in 2025, and other new features that are still in development.

“We are continuing to develop and operate the game so that everyone can enjoy it even more, and we plan to hold a variety of in-game events in Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket going forward,” the team wrote in a new announcement posted on Thursday. It promised new booster packs by the end of the year, so likely sometime in December, as well as trading in January 2025.

How exactly will trading work? We still don’t quite know that part. It seems highly unlikely that it will be a straight 1:1 mechanic for all cards currently in the game. Instead, it’s possible trading will be restricted to certain categories, like more common non-star cards or cards you already own at least one copy of. “We are planning to gradually expand the selection of cards that are able to be traded,” Pokémon TCG Pocket’s devs write.

In the meantime, new booster packs could mean one of two things: a whole new set of cards to follow Genetic Apex, or new promo packs for the same set, as we’ve seen in the Lapras ex drop event. This was already hinted at in datamined leaks from the game’s initial release back in October, but its nice to have confirmation. The question that still remains is whether these will be variants of Pokémon that are already in the game, or if these new booster packs might add an entirely new section to the Pokédex.

The Pokémon TCG Pocket devs also teased “new features in development outside of the trade feature introduced here.” Many players, including myself, already have plenty of requests for what these should be. At the top of the list for some is a dark mode. Others want starting turns to be rebalanced so that whoever goes first isn’t so heavily penalized. I, for one, would love to see Pokémon emotes added for interacting with other players.

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