Game Updates

Introduction

Preliminary patch notes for the upcoming Season 0 release of Pokémon: Seasons. Content is subject to change until release and some content has been cut from the patchnotes to avoid spoilers or in-work features. All changes are compared to the latest Pre-Release version from March 2025.

Summary

• Major card balance update
  • All updates are available in the database
• Moved game to a bigger table is order to support all new features
• Updated the world map
  • Updated various paths and tokens
  • Added Area: Zero (underground) map
• Redesigned player area
• Improved Terastal Pokémon
• Added Traits
• Updated items and introduced new artifact system
  • Re-balanced held items
  • Extended On Demand items
  • Improved visuals
• Updated and added new Hidden Spots and Nodes
• Various discoveries have been updated
• Reworked anomalies
• Reworked world events
• Extended shrine events
• Removed world stability
• Updated and added new Keepsakes
• Updated Ruined Treasure cards
• Improved Encounter Generator
  • Optimized NPC party generator
• Updated 'Victory Road' campaign
  • Improved the start-up routine
    • Added and updated modifiers
  • Updated progression
  • Added access to Area: Zero (surface area)
  • Reworked end-game
• Many bug fixes and new QoL improvements

World Map

• Various new tokens have been added:
  • Anomaly Shrines (available via Folklore)
  • Wormhole Shrines (available via Folklore)
  • Team Star Bases (available via ???)
  • Giant Ruins (available via ???)
• Overworld:
  • Removed 3 village tokens and moved the other 9 to new locations
  • Added a Port to the south-east coast close to Artizan
    • Moved (southern) Port Cobo slightly to the west
  • Moved various Legendary Shrines to new positions
  • Team Star outposts have been removed
  • The 3 Ruins (Landmarks) have been removed
  • Various Apricorn Trees and Reefs have been shifted around slightly
  • The Paldean High Temple no longer summons Legendary Pokémon during discovery (see 'DIscoveries')
  • The Ruined Caves have been replaced with Sealed Caves (see 'Anomalies')
• Area: Zero (surface)
  • Accessible via fast-travel from Cities after unlocked through individual campaign progression
  • Contained Warped Apricorn Trees have been shifted around slightly
  • Shrines have been replaced with permanent Anomaly Shrines
  • Villages ('Base Camps') have been removed
  • Access to Zero Underground is restricted in Season 0.
• Area: Zero (underground) → Zero Underground
  • Map has been added beneath the overworld
  • Inaccessible during Season 0 through normal gameplay

Player Area

• The size of player areas has been increased
• New additions:
  • The Overview panel has been added to keep track of world events as well as hand size, movement speed and active temporary effects
  • Artifact slots have been added to to store and activate up to 5 artifacts
  • Berry Mixer has been added to to turn unused consumables into new items
  • Capture Zone for storing Poké Balls used for Auto-Catch feature
• Updated areas:
  • The Card Actions panel now supports all attached cards of Pokémon and can now use and activate most On Demand items
  • Storage area has been redesigned to include the Berry Mixer and Artifact slots
  • Ball Storage was extended by a wild slot (for alternative balls) and the Capture Zone
  • The Keepsake panel has been increased in size to support a new unlock method
  • The Progression panel has been increased in size to support various features for multiple campaigns.
  • The crafting costs of held items have been updated.
  • The Star Piece exchange has been reworked.

Terastal Pokémon

• The signature move of Terastal Pokémon is now Terastal-type, treating the move as the Terastal-type of the Pokémon.
  • When defeating (or evolving) a Terastal Pokémon, the learnable move matches it's original type and not 'Terastal'
• Wild Terastal encounters have a high chance to spawn with a Terastal-only trait (see 'Traits')
  • Abilities and consumables are more likely on wild Terastal Pokémon

Traits

• Traits have been added as a new modifier for Pokémon cards
• Traits have been added and visible at in the top-right corner of Pokémon cards (as an interactable decal)
• Traits provide a permanent buff to the Pokémon or the owner of the Pokémon
• Traits are (internally) split into various categories:
  • Battle Traits improve the stats or battle interaction of Pokémon
  • Economy Traits generate currency, items or improve trade interactions
  • Misc Traits are a collection of all other traits (such as ones that improve player stats like hand size or affect the overworld)
• Addtional characterics of traits:
  • Some traits can only be acquired by Terastal Pokémon
  • Some traits can only be acquired by o
  • On Demand items
  • Some traits are added by special events or game features (Such as Starter Pokémon, Partner Pokémon or events)
• Wild encounters have a chance to generate with a random trait
• Players can add traits to their Pokémon with On Demand items
• Some traits cannot be removed or 'minted' (Turned into an On Demand item)
• NPC parties have a chance to generate Pokémon with battle traits.
• Complete List of available traits:

Items

• Held Items:
  • Artifacts are no longer held items (see 'Artifacts')
  • The 20 (currently available) held items have been rebalanced
  • Berries and other 'one-time use held items are now referred to as 'consumables' in-game
    • Any three consumables can be used in the Berry Mixer to create new items.
  • Players may equip duplicates of consumables to their Pokémon, but each normal held item is still limited to 1
  • The following held items no longer exist:
    • Tera Raid & Alpha Token → now traits
    • Dynamax Band & Mega Stone → now traits
• On Demand Items:
  • Various new items have been added or reworked.
    • Currently 15 On Demand items exist
  • The design has been overhauled with a new pink flavour
  • On Demand items can now be activated from the Card Action panel
• Artifacts:
  • No longer considered held items and cannot be equipped.
  • Artifacts can now be 'activated' from the new artifact slots in the player bags.
    • Up to 5 artifacts can be active at any one time per player.
    • Artifacts can only be removed from a slot during (own) Village discovery for a fee
    • Form changing artifacts for Legendary Pokémon keep the effect, but have to be in an artifact slot to be used
  • Artifacts have a passive overworld / discovery / player effect that is always active as long as the artifact is in an active slot
    • Artifacts do not have any effects that can affect the player's Pokémon stats or battle interactions.
    • Blue artifacts now have passive effects too (niche effects) and can be activated in artifacts slots as well

Hidden Spots and Nodes

• Apricorn Stashes now appear in 2 variations: Normal and Small.
• Black Apricorn Stashes no longer spawn at the beginning of main campaigns, but will be added to the overworld later on.
• Bronze Bottle Caps (On Demand) have been added as Hidden Spots.
• Generic Trainer Ambushes have been replaced by Team Star Ambushes with unique rewards.
• The amount of Alpha, Tera Raid and Ambush tokens has been decreased at the start of main campaigns
• The amount of Fallen Stars has been reduced from 8 to 4 at the start of main campaigns.
• Training Target tokens have been replaced with Silver Bottle Caps, which have the same effect as the previous version of Training Targets.
• New options have been added to Mystery Hidden Spots.
• Mystery and Blue Hidden Spots will now appear more often.
• Nodes have been extended:
  • Paldean Stabilizer → Wild encounters spawn with traits more often, but are less likely to have abilities or consumables and ???
  • Paldean Destabilizer → Wild encounters spawn with abilities and consumables more often but are less likely to have traits and ???
  • Nightsky Telescope → Chance to spawn Hidden Spots nearby every turn, but whilst face-up, new Fallen Stars cannot be added to the overworld
  • Ribbon Stand → Turns a trait into a mint for a fee ("Minting")
  • Terastal Den → Nearby Apricorn Trees/Reefs are more likely to generate Terastal Pokémon more likely and ???
  • Glitter Key → Used for Glitter Anomaly (see 'Anomalies')

Discoveries

The following discoveries have been updated with new and improved features

• Villages
  • During main campaigns, players may now 'join' a village now and change their personal standing (see 'World Events')
  • The trade pool for Villages (and Ports) have been updated to include most new On Demand items
    • 'Unique' trades now have an improved visual
• Ports
  • Now have 3 trade offers to choose from
• Wild Encounters
  • Wild Pokémon may spawn with traits, abilities and consumables
    • Traits are already visible on the initial generation of encounters, but abilities and consumables only spawn after a wild Pokémon has been chosen
  • Auto-Catch no longer requires players to move Poké Balls to the tablet. Instead each player has a dedicated zone in their player area to store the Poké Balls for Auto-Catch.
    • Only 5 Poké Balls may be used for Auto-Catch at any time.
  • Alpha and Tera Raid Pokémon now spawn with their corresponding traits.
    • The additional moves of Alpha and Tera Raid Pokémon have been reworked
• Legendary Shrines
  • Legendary Pokémon will no longer spawn randomly here anymore
    • Players require the Box of Treats On Demand item to spawn a Legendary Pokémon selection
    • Every Legendary Shrine has two dedicated types. Legendary Pokémon of these types will appear here more often
    • Players can now learn the move of a defeated Legendary Pokémon when offering a Peach Apricorn. In this case, a copy of the signature move is created.
    • Almost all Legendary Pokémon can now be encountered this way. Only some special cases have alternative encounter conditions.
      • This currently includes Arceus, Eternatus, Necrozma, Terapagos, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien, Starmobile Revavroom, Spiritomb
  • Imbalance events and rarer shrine events will spawn here more often
• Shrines
  • Can no longer generate Imbalance events on the first drawn cards
  • Shrine events have a chance to spawn a rarer event card called Shrine Rumor. 
    • These cards have unique scripted effects.
• Paldean High Temple
  • Discovering this token will yield no discovery.
  • Events and Shrine events have a chance to spawn a Legendary Pokémon (token) at this location
    • The spawned Pokémon is guaranteed to be Terastal and has a rare trait.
    • The token is removed after discovery.

Anomalies

• Anomalies will no longer spawn randomly on the overworld anymore but have 4 dedicated spots instead (where the Ruined Caves where in the previous version)
• Anomalies will only spawn when there is a spot available. If all four Sealed Caves already have anomalies, no new anomaly can spawn.
• 5 different types of anomalies exist. Each has their own negative effect and a way to be closed.
• Anomaly types:
  • Rift Anomalies represent the Pre-Release anomaly and require a battle against a strong NPC party including a Terastal Anomaly Pokémon.
  • Greed Anomalies increase the costs of all trade offers while active.It spawns with a selection of trades. Once all trades in this anomaly are done, the anomaly closes.
  • Glitter Anomalies add 3 new (random) Nodes to the overworld. Turns all Nodes face-down and shuffles them around. One of these Nodes is a Glitter Key, needed to close this anomaly. Whilst active, less new Hidden Spots will appear.
  • Distortion Anomalies reduce the amount of Pokémon encountered during discoveries. Wild Pokémon may spawn with the Distortion trait. Bringing a Pokémon with the Distortion trait to this anomaly closes it. The trait is then replaced with a random rare trait.
  • Broken Anomalies unseal the Treasure of Ruin Pokémon inside the Sealed Cave. The Pokémon is always Terastal and has the Ruined trait. Anomaly closes after the Pokémon is encountered for a battle. While active, no new Events can happen and players may not change their standings (see 'World Events').

World Events

• The World Event cards have been removed and replaced with a better solution.
• The table now has 3 global states: Weather, Folklore and Event. These are visible in the overview panel in every player area for quick reference.
• Weather:
  • 9 different weather types. Each increases the encounter rate of 2 different Pokémon types. And wild Pokémon of a specific habitat spawn with traits more often.
• Folklore
  • Made changes to overworld tokens and Shrine interactions.
  • Has a chance to turn Legendary Shrines into Wormhole Shrines or Paradox Shrines. During this period, the Legendary Pokémon found here are from a different pool (Ultra Beasts and Paradox)
• Event
  • Temporary, usually beneficial random event for all players, such as better trades, free items or more
• Weather and Folklore can be changed with Imbalance events from Shrine discoveries
• Events can randomly change or end between turns but will last at least 3 full turns when active.
• Next to these global states, a personal state has been added: Standing.
  • Every player can have a standing, visible from in the Overview panel of their player area
  • Standing give the players a unique permanent buff throughout the main campaigns
  • Players may change their standing during Village discoveries. Each village has their own unique standing.
    • Every time a player changes their standing, the fee increases. The first change is free.

World Stability

• Stability has been removed due to being too unreliable. Unique effects of stability have been reworked into other areas of the table.
• Keepsakes no longer require stability to unlock effects, instead players can spend resources to progress and unlock Keepsake effects permanently
  • See 'Keepsakes' for more information

Keepsakes

• Most Keepsakes have been reworked to include the new table features
  • Most battle bonuses have been shifted into the held item(s)
  • The amount of Keepsakes has been increased to 80.
• Exotic items are no longer only acquirable with specific Keepsakes in play. Some Keepsakes can add them permanently to trade pools though.
  • All exotic items are available through various means such as the Berry Mixer, the Event state or Random Events
• Keepsake effects can now be unlocked permanently by spending resources
  • The overworld (left) effects require Black Apricorns
  • The battle (right) effects require Star Piece
  • Additional Journey Points are required for progression and the second effect on each side requires a Peach Apricorn

Ruined Treasure Cards

• The cost of assemble effects has been increased to 4 symbols
• "Symbol" cards have been added to the deck
  • Cannot be played on their own but provide 2 symbols for assemble effects
  • with 8 Fallen Stars, each Symbol Card grants a special bonus when played
• 4 Fallen Stars will now add another symbol to all 'Symbol' cards
• 8 Fallen Stars will now add another symbol to all 'Symbol' cards
• 'Navigate' may be played at any time during the player's turn. Navigate now protects from Special Hidden Spot encounters for the whole turn.

Encounter Generator

• The Encounter Generator has eceived a visual overhaul.
• Generator logic for NPC parties has been drastically improved. 
  • Bad move combinations or useless effects are far less likely since all moves have now got specific internal tags now to allow the generator to combine moves together better
  • NPC parties are now (internally) sorted into normal, elite and boss encounters. Each have their own logic to generate fitting parties
    • Pokémon in NPC parties may be Terastal. In this case, the original Pokémon type has to match the encounter, but not the random Terastal-type.
  • Pokémon can now be generated with battle traits
  • Held items are generated with better variety and Poké Balls can be chosen for every Pokémon generated from a selection.
  • Boss NPC battles have a chance to generate with unique passive effects ("tactics")
    • to counter-play Ruined Treasure cards and make fights more challenging

Victory Road Campaign

• Players now begin with at least 3 Starter Pokémon that can evolve twice (three stage evolutions)
  • All Starter Pokémon generate with the Companion trait.
• The game starts with a face-up Nightsky Telescope Node.
• Players may freely choose a starting village from the 9 available ones.
• The campaign progression has been updated
  • Players may use Beyond Limits (Gigantamax,  Mega) at 5 badges
    • Players receive one Megamax Mark On Demand item with 5 badges. This applies the Beyond Limits traits to a valid Pokémon.
  • Players may flight to the Area: Zero survey station with 6 badges
    • All players receive a secret Ace Challenge after 4 badges. This challenge has to be completed (secretly) in order to be eligable to participate in the Ace Duel at the end of the campaign
  • Legendary Pokémon can be used in battle with 7 badges
• When the first player acquires 3/6/8 badges, a random anomaly spawns, if a slot is available
• Additional gym challenges have been added
• The Academy Ace Tournament has been changed into the Ace Duel:
  • During this campaign, players will have an Ace Score tracker available in their player area
  • The score can be increased by various mothods:
    • challenging different overworld trainer ("Challengers")
    • closing anomalies
    • defeating Team Star Ambushes
    • ???
    • ???
    • ???
  • Reaching specific milestones rewards players
  • Players with 8 badges, a specific (???) Ace Score and a completed Ace Challenge are allowed to re-challenge one gym in the region as their Ace Duel.
    • Whenever the first player completes their Ace Duel, a turn timer starts for the remainder of the game.
    • All other players have to use these remaining turns to finish their own Ace Duel.
      • All players who won their Ace Duel at the end of the game will be seated into a round robin game with each other.
      • The player with the best win rate out of all players has one final battle against a random Ace Champion
      • This final battle ends the campaign.
• Stamps have been replaced
  • Stamps:
    • Close an anomaly
    • Defeat a Challenger or Team Star Ambush
    • Play an Assemble effect
    • Discover the Cave Entrance in Area: Zero
    • Own 6 unique non-consumable held items
    • Own 6 unique traits
    • Activate 3 artifacts
    • Own 7 differernt Apricorns
    • Acquire a Peach Apricorns from discoveries
    • Capture a Legendary Pokémon
    • Capture a Terastal Pokémon
  • Rewards:
    • 1 Yellow, Red and Blue Apricorn
    • +1 Movement Speed & Hand Size
    • +1 Artifact Slot
    • +1 Movement Speed & Hand Size
    • 1 White, Pink and Green Apricorn
    • +1 Movement Speed & Hand Size
    • 3 Black Apricorns
    • +1 Artifact Slot
    • 1 Peach Apricorn
    • 1 Golden Bottle Cap
    • 1 Cherish Ball
• The game modifiers have been updated:
  • Quickstart: All starter Pokémon generate with a second move and an ability. The starter bag has been revamped.
  • Terastal Outburst: Terastal encounters are (even) more likely. NPC parties have a higher chance to have Terastal Pokémon.
  • Keepsakes: Players may now choose from 5 different Keepsakes instead of 3.
  • Travellers (4 or less players): 2 player slots are replaced with traveller slots, allowing spectators (or short-term visitors) to participate temporary with unique features.
  • Hidden Agenda: All players start with a unique random optional questline. 
  • Multiverse: All cards exist an infinite amount of times. Allowing Pokémon to appear multiple times. Move and ability cards can have duplicates.
  • Utopia: All unique Ruined Treasure cards from various Keepsakes are added to the Ruined Treasure deck.
  • Disasters: Imbalance events appear more often. The Weather and Folklore may change randomly between turns.
• Different game modes have been added:
  • Standard → the standard Victory Road experience. 2 gym challenges needed to progress. Gym fight encounter logic increases with each badge.
  • Rush → for a faster table. Gym challenges are replaced with an instant reward bag. Players start with additional resources. Special rules apply to hasten game flow.
  • Starfall → an incremental challenge mode for experienced players. See below.
• Starfall has been added as an optional incremental difficulty modifier.
  • Comes with 25 different difficulty levels. Can you get the highest Ace Score in a successful run?
  • (1): Turn limit is set to 50
  • (2): Players do not start with berries.
  • (3): Difficulty for gyms 5-8 is increased
  • (4): The game starts with 0 Fallen Stars on the overworld
  • (5): Adding additional options to shrines is more expensive
  • (6): Difficulty for gyms 1-4 is increased
  • (7): Turn limit is reduced to 42
  • (8): The game starts with an active anomaly (not Broken Anomaly)
  • (9): Initial Star Piece limit reduced to 3. Initial Hand Size decreased to 3.
  • (10): The game starts with less Special Hidden Spots. The quantity of refreshed Hidden Spots is reduced.
  • (11): Players have to complete all gym challenges instead of 2
  • (12): Players are less likely to find Random Events.
  • (13): All gym battles generate much better and calculated parties
  • (14): All wild encounters have one less option to choose from
  • (15): Turn limit is reduced to 35
  • (16): The game starts with 3 active anomalies (different ones, not Broken Anomaly)
  • (17): Most trades are more expensive
  • (18): Traits and trait-related items appear less often
  • (19): Players receive and must complete two Ace Challenges.
  • (20-25): ???

Quality of Life

• The new Encounter Generator splits both "NPC party" zones into their own and the management of them has been improved
• The Cards Action panel can now activate and process almost all On Demand items, instantly applying effects or spawning cards nearby (moves, abilities)
• The Star Piece exchange is now interactive
• The player areas now track Hand Size, Movement Speed and Star Piece limit dynamically and visually.
  • The numbers are updated at the start of player turns
• 'Found Items' events now have a button that teleports the items to a designated place in the player areas
• Wild Legendary encounters have the (so far unavalable) 'Discard' button in the arena replaced with a 'Learn' button, allowing players to create a copy of the signature move of the Legendary Pokémon to learn after defeating the Pokémon and offering a Peach Apricorn.
• Global effects that interfere with wild encounters are now visible during discovery (Nodes, anomalies, etc.)
• [Victory Road] discovering cities now disables the gym battle if the player already owns the badge
• [Victory Road] old gym challenge cards are now automcatically discarded when a player acquires a new one

Others

• All Pokémon can now learn abilities matching any of their learnable type. 
• The storage space for world events has been removed
• The storage space for roaming legendary Pokémon has been removed
• Terastal Pokémon are now always generated as copies, allowing the same Pokémon to exist multiple time as Terastal
• Legendary Pokémon encounters (except token encounters) now have at least 2 options to choose from
• All trade pools have been updated and improved
• The catch rate of wild Pokémon is updated. Special rules may apply for specific encounters.
• A huge amount of bug fixes