With the 2025 Pokemon World Championships in the rearview mirror, and incredible winners like Giovanni taking their awards home in glee, the rest of the planet stayed tuned until the end for what was an even bigger deal for so many of us who have been standing on the sidelines. The Pokemon Company promised something big for the closing ceremony, and now we’ve got it.

Not only did we get some big news in the form of the Battle Club multiplayer mode for Pokemon Legends: Z-A – here’s a link for that bombshell! – but we also learned something with rather dramatic implications: rather than a traditional mainline title representing Pokemon’s VGC in 2026, as they always have in the past, Pokemon Champions will take the throne.

Champions For Championships

Pokemon Champions is, ostensibly, a spinoff game. But it’s a spinoff with the express purpose of providing a completely competitive experience. Whether it’s because Pokemon’s tenth-generation mainline games won’t be out in time for the Pokemon World Championships’ sunny San Francisco 2026 setting, or because Champions will well and truly be a routine representative of the tournament scene moving forward, we can at least expect Pokemon Champions to be the definitive title of all things VGC next year.

This is a paradigm shift. For years, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have led the charge. Before them, it was Pokemon Sword and Shield. The further back you look, and all you’re really seeing is the generational numbers go down by one each time since the tournament scene first exploded on to the global stage. But Pokemon Champions is challenging our preconceived notions.

In fact, even if Pokemon Gen 10 takes a stand in 2027 onward, Pokemon Champions might stick around for the long haul. From Pokemon’s official website:

“The Pokemon World Championships is the peak of competitive Pokémon play, and Pokemon Champions will soon be a part of that. Pokemon VGC battles will take place on Pokemon Champions at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in San Francisco and in future Championship Series events.”

So, yes. If you’re into the competitive side of the wonderful world of Pokemon, it’s certain that you’ll be seeing a lot of Champions in 2026, and nor is it out of the realm of possibility that you’ll continue seeing it in ’27 and beyond.