Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC Will Finally Show Wailord in All Its Glory

The upcoming Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC will finally show a full-sized Wailord on the overworld map. IGN and other sites confirmed that players can apparently see a full-sized Wailord swimming in the ocean around the Isle of Armor, a new area that will appear in Pokemon Sword and Shield's first set of DLC being released later this week. An IGN write-up of a 30-minute Isle of Armor preview noted that a "huge Wailord" could be spotted from the beach, although the writer was unclear whether this was just the first-ever to scale representation of a Wailord in the game, or if it had some kind of greater purpose tied to the Isle of Armor's story. While Wailord appeared in the base game of Pokemon Sword and Shield, it did not appear in the overworld map, unlike hundreds of other Pokemon.

Wailord, a Water-type Pokemon modelled after a blue whale, has long been misrepresented in Pokemon games. Although the Pokemon is over 47 feet long, the Pokemon is usually scaled down in various games just to make sure that the Pokemon actually fits within the screens. Even Pokemon Sword and Shield, a game that features Pokemon growing to massive sizes, doesn't even show the Wailord in all of its glory. The only Pokemon game to ever show Wailord to scale to date is Pokemon Battle Revolution, which actually scaled Wailord based on its size on the Pokedex.

Wailord's inaccurate size in the Pokemon games is often cited as evidence of poor graphics in the Pokemon games. With Wailord showing up in full size (albeit not in battles), and Blastoise actually firing water from its cannons, it seems that Game Freak is actually paying attention to fan complaints and responding through its DLC.

We'll get a chance to see Wailord at full size when the Isle of Armor DLC comes out for Pokemon Sword and Shield on June 17th.