Pokémon Next Nintendo Switch Freebie Is Live, Here's How To Claim

The Pokémon Company is rolling out a free reward you won’t want to miss, tied to an update for one of its new games.

This April Pokémon fans have a new Nintendo Switch title to look forward to launching next week, Pokémon Champions.

Because the new game will support your own collection of Pokémon, albeit with some glaring omissions, there’s been a need to update Pokémon Home. This is a digital bank where you can store Pokémon from loads of different games, allowing transfers to titles they weren’t originally caught in.

The new update for Pokémon Home is now live and to celebrate there’s a special freebie giveaway for those who own a copy of Pokémon Legends: Z-A.

Here’s How To Get Your Free Starter Pokémon Variant

The giveaway involves three new versions of Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s starter ‘mon, Totodile, Chikorita and Tepig. When selecting your starter there was only one solid choice, so if you didn’t choose Totodile take a moment to reflect.

For those that got stuck with Chikorita and Tepig though there’s still a chance to correct your mistake, as aside from them already being catchable in the late-game this new giveaway will grant you the Alpha versions.

The Alpha versions are much larger, hit harder, and generally make great additions to your team. If you tend to use your starter Pokémon a lot these upgrade versions are worth considering, and if you don’t usually run your starter perhaps this will tempt you.

The Pokémon Company

To acquire them all you need to do is deposit any Pokémon from Legends: Z-A into Pokémon Home.

Then head to Pokémon Home’s Mystery Gift menu and the distribution will commence, adding powerful new allies to your team.

For fans who are disgruntled over Pokémon Home not having a Pokedex completion bonus for Legends: Z-A, this feels like a decent alternative.

That said there’s still time for an extra freebie or two to become available, so keep an eye out for updates.

It’s worth pointing out that the base starters for Pokémon Legends: Z-A can not be transferred to Pokémon Champions at the time of writing.

For whatever reason the game’s roster is made up of fully-evolved Pokémon only, with the exception of Pikachu of course.

It’s still worth grabbing these Alpha Pokémon while you can though, as even if you don’t plan on using them they’re free to claim and are essential if you want to really catch ‘em all.

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