No More Draining Oceans in Pokopia's First DLC

If you've spent any time with Pokémon Pokopia, you've probably done something deeply unhinged in the name of resource gathering: draining an entire ocean. Players figured out early on that certain items and materials sat on the ocean floor, visible but completely unreachable. The solution? Use Ditto's terrain-shaping tools to just remove all the water. Every last drop. It worked, technically, but it was the kind of brute-force workaround that screams "we shipped without this feature."

That era is about to end. A Japanese commercial, confirmed by Serebii, has locked in August 5 as the release date for Bubbly Basin, the first part of Pokémon Pokopia's three-part Expansion Pass. Alongside it, a free update will give every player access to a new move called Dive, letting Ditto explore underwater environments properly for the first time.

I love that the community's answer to "we can't swim" was "fine, we'll just delete the sea." It's the kind of absurd player ingenuity that only happens in sandbox games, and The Pokémon Company is now building an entire DLC around underwater exploration feels like a direct response. You wanted to go underwater? Here's a whole town down there.

What Bubbly Basin Adds

Bubbly Basin introduces a new underwater town accessible through a gate in Bleak Beach. To reach it, players need to learn Dive and complete the request "Raise the environment level!" in that area first. The DLC brings additional Pokémon residents like Mudkip and Popplio, ocean floor-themed furniture, and new outfits for Ditto.

The free 2.0 update launching alongside it is arguably the bigger deal for players who don't want to pay. Dive won't be locked behind the expansion pass. Every player gets the ability to explore the ocean floor, plant grass underwater, build structures, and create submerged towns in existing regions. The DLC just adds a dedicated new area designed around that mechanic.

Splitting it this way is a smart move, and I want to give The Pokémon Company credit for it. Locking a core traversal ability behind paid DLC would have gone over badly, especially when the base game clearly needed underwater access from day one. Making Dive free while selling the new town as premium content is the right call.

Three Parts, One Price

The full Expansion Pass costs $34.99 and covers all three planned updates. Part 2 is expected in late 2026 with "additional new features" that haven't been detailed yet. Part 3 arrives in 2027 with another new town. At the moment, the three parts can't be purchased separately, which means you're committing to the full package upfront on faith that Parts 2 and 3 will deliver. Given how little we know about Part 2, that's a gamble, though Pokopia's base game earned enough goodwill to make it a reasonable one.

For anyone unfamiliar, Pokémon Pokopia is a crafting and town-building game on Nintendo Switch 2 where you play as a Ditto restoring a withered world that humans have abandoned. It launched to strong reception, and the loop of building, gardening, and befriending Pokémon residents has kept players invested for serious hour counts.

Bubbly Basin arrives August 5. If you've been holding off on the Expansion Pass waiting for a concrete date, now you have one, and you've got exactly a week to stop draining oceans the hard way.