Pokemon Sword and Shield Ending Support for Several Features Soon

Pokemon Sword and Shield will soon lose support for some online features, The Pokemon Company announced this week. Affected features include the Wild Area News function as well as the Battle Stadium, though the Y-Comm features that players use often to interact with others will still be available. These online adjustments are set to be in effect starting on November 1st, The Pokemon Company confirmed.

The notice about the end of some online functions was shared on the Japanese support page for Pokemon games and was first spotted by Serebii. Max Raid Battles aren't going away, but the Wild Area News feature won't be updated after November 1st. And while the end of support for online features typically isn't a good thing for players still active in the game, The Pokemon Company did say that after this update goes out, "Pokemon that could not be met in normal play, such as Gigantamax Snorlax, will appear."

As for the Battle Stadium, The Pokemon update will be the last one that feature receives. There won't be monthly ranking announcement for the November season after it concludes, and no more tournaments will be held online, but Friendly Competitions will still be possible.

The good news for those who still plan on playing even after online support for these features ends is that the game will continue to allow players to use the Y-Comm functions. Those include things like Surprise Trade, Link Trade, Link Battle, and so on. No plans to remove support for those were laid out in the support article about the November update.

Pokemon Sword and Shield players have been active in the game since it released in November 2019, so they'll have gotten around three years of support by now ahead of the November update. It makes sense that the game would lose support for these features now given that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet – the next mainline games in the series that have been graced by several new reveals lately – will soon release on November 18th.