Pokémon Winds & Waves Leaked Release Date Is Earlier Than We’d Hoped

The announcement of Pokémon Winds and Waves as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations for the franchise was met with a ton of excitement from a player base that has been waiting for news on Generation X for a long time.

The developer gave us a good look at everything on offer this time around, including the water-heavy new world we’ll be exploring, and the starter Pokémon we’ll get to choose from.

The only caveat was that we haven’t got too much in the way of specific detail just yet, and that usually means that we’re still quite a long way out from release. Given that we’ve been told it’s coming in 2027, most assumed it would be towards the end of the year. Not if recent information from a usually reliable leaker is to be believed, though it could be on the way a lot sooner than we might have thought.

Pokémon Winds & Waves May Land Sooner Than Expected

As first reported by Vice, a rumor shared by Centro Leaks on Twitter/X suggests that the game should arrive a good bit earlier than the November 2027 put forward by most. The only caveat to that is that the leaker didn’t really say why that’s the case, so it could just be a hunch based on the information they know so far.

Historically, signs aren’t great for those of us who don’t want it to come early, with most games in the main series (after Sun and Moon) releasing in the middle of November, in whatever their chosen year was.

The Pokémon Legends series has been much more of an outlier in the release of Arceus and Z-A, with those games releasing on January 28, 2022 and October 16, 2025, respectively. If they choose to go more down that road, then they could absolutely break from more recent traditions and launch outside of November.

Pokémon Winds & Waves Is A Switch 2 Exclusive

The other bit of bad news for players on the original Switch is that Pokémon Winds and Waves will only be launching on the Nintendo Switch 2.

It’s an understandable choice from the developer, given the big step-up in technological capabilities of the console, but it leaves a shocking number of gamers out in the cold. According to Nintendo’s own figures, around 14.5 million of the 17.37 million Switch 2’s sold were fans upgrading from the original Switch. Bearing in mind they sold 146 million of those, that’s a lot of players who didn’t take the leap.

In any case, if you were thinking about taking the leap, Pokémon Winds and Waves could be just the push needed to do so. With other tempting Switch 2 exclusives like The Duskbloods on the way, it’s a great time to be a Nintendo player.