Pokémon Pokopia's first Expansion Pass drop adds an underwater zone today
The Bubbly Basin DLC is live on Switch 2, bringing submarine building and a free update that adds Manaphy.
Nintendo released the first wave of the $34.99 Pokémon Pokopia Expansion Pass today, opening up a new underwater biome for the Switch 2 life-sim. Originally announced in June, Part 1: Bubbly Basin is available right now. According to Nintendo, the drop focuses on submerged base-building and aquatic farming.
When Pokémon Pokopia launched back in March, it was a bit of a surprise. Koei Tecmo's Omega Force is mostly known for hacking through thousands of enemies in the Dynasty Warriors series or Persona 5 Strikers. Handing them a cozy town-builder where you play as a Ditto felt like a strange choice, but the Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing influences worked well on the new hardware.
The Bubbly Basin launch trailer.
Farming watermelons under the sea
Bubbly Basin leans heavily into the game's crafting mechanics. You can now use buoyant blocks to construct submerged habitats, alongside submarine building. The base game already let players terraform their islands and build custom enclosures for different Pokémon species, but the underwater expansion complicates that by introducing buoyancy physics. Blocks will float or sink depending on their material, meaning you actually have to anchor your submerged houses.
The new area requires some creative power solutions. You have to hook up Electric-type Pokémon to run bubble machines so your non-aquatic villagers can breathe underwater. You also get to farm watermelons alongside Water-type companions. Having actual underwater mechanics is a welcome addition.
Version 2.0.0 fixes the storage problem
You do not need to buy the Expansion Pass to get today's base game patch. The free Version 2.0.0 update adds the Mythical Pokémon Manaphy and unlocks the Dive field move, which is required to access the sub-aquatic areas in the first place.
The free update also fixes a major inconvenience by adding bulk item transfers. Moving crafting materials between player storage and the inventory bag one at a time was tedious, and the patch resolves that headache entirely. The update also adds precise placement controls for indoor housing items and expands the color palette options for your Ditto avatar.
Two more waves cost $34.99
The franchise has a long history of life-sim adjacent games, going back to Hey You, Pikachu! on the Nintendo 64 and Pokémon Channel on the GameCube, but Pokopia is the first time the series fully committed to the Animal Crossing formula. The Switch 2 hardware handles the dense towns well, and the DLC roadmap suggests Nintendo plans to support it for a while.
The $34.99 entry fee covers three content drops in total. Part 2 is slated for late 2026, bringing more decorative items and additional Pokémon to the island. Part 3 will follow sometime in 2027. Nintendo has not detailed exactly what the final wave includes yet.
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