Pokemon Home is the new backbone of the Pokemon franchise. The cloud service connects the 3DS Pokemon games through Pokemon  Bank, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, and the brand new Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield titles for Nintendo Switch. The newest update for the service expands it even further. Pokemon Home is now prepared for the upcoming launch of Pokemon Sword and Shield's first major post-launch DLC, the Isle of Armor.

The update offers a range of new feature additions for Pokemon Home. But the biggest and most exciting is the new Battle Data feature. This addition displays an array of new statistics for players to pore through. Statistics like overall competitive ranking, individual battle information, and also Ranked Battle options. Subscribers to Pokemon Home will be able to access this information directly from the app, rather than having to rely on websites.

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In addition to the Battle Data changes, Pokemon Home also now allows users to directly trade their Pokemon with friends via an online connection. As surprising as it may be, trades were previously limited to local connections with those on a user's friend's list. It's a major change and a necessary one at that. Fittingly for Nintendo, it's apparently going to be a temporary one, too.

how pokemon home works

Other temporary changes include a reduction in time necessary for Room Trades and the Wonder Box. Wonder Box trades now only take 60 minutes to complete, allowing Pokemon Home users to do many of them a day with relative ease. And as for Room Trades, 10 of them can be done per day.

There's no clear indication as to how long these trading upgrades will be available to Pokemon Home users. They're likely available in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, since so many are self-quarantining. Perhaps they'll last until the pandemic has passed or perhaps fans can persuade Nintendo to keep them for longer.

Pokemon Home is the required way to transfer Pokemon from previous generations of the franchise. And for Pokemon that aren't available in Pokemon Sword and Shield, it's the only way to trade those Pokemon to friends. That it's typically so extremely limited in that capacity, and that it might go back to that, is a disappointment. Hopefully, fans will take advantage of this opportunity. Hopefully, Nintendo will continue to improve Pokemon Home so that Pokemon trainers across the world can use it as they see fit.

Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are available now on Nintendo Switch.

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