Developer: Game Freak, Omega Force
Publisher: The Pokémon Company, Nintendo
Platform: Switch 2
Tested on: Switch 2
Pokémon Pokopia Expansion Pass: Bubbly Basin DLC – Review
The biggest surprise in the Switch 2’s year one lineup was perhaps Pokémon Pokopia. What appeared to be a small and simple Pokémon-themed Minecraft clone turned out to be an enormous game filled with lots of fun ideas and secrets to be discovered. Needless to say, Pokopia took the Switch 2 community by storm. Given the game’s massive success, it was only a matter of time before more Pokopia content would arrive in the form of DLC. The first part of Pokopia’s Expansion Pass, titled Bubbly Basin, just arrived, and we’re more than happy to dive back into the game (pun intended) to see what’s new.
Ever since Pokopia launched, we’ve been playing the game on a daily basis, although after completing the main story, our activities were mostly limited to collecting our daily stamps and recipe hunting. There is plenty to do in Pokopia’s base post-game, with five distinct worlds to restore and transform to your heart’s content. Without a story to push things forward, though, Pokopia becomes more akin to Animal Crossing: a life sim sandbox where creative freedom rather than narrative is the main driving force. We had grown accustomed to approaching Pokopia with that creative mindset, so it took some adjusting to get into Bubbly Basin. The DLC picks up where the story left off, and its shift to narrative content heralds the return of certain restrictions that feel reminiscent of Pokopia’s early game.
Those restrictions have everything to do with that new world, the titular Bubbly Basin, which is Pokopia’s first underwater area. Everything begins with a call from Professor Tangrowth leading into a short mission where you meet the mythical Pokémon Manaphy. This short-but-sweet adventure culminates in the Seafaring Pokémon teaching you the new Dive ability. Once you complete this mission, Popplio shows up in the Bleak Beach area and asks you to accompany him to Bubbly Basin. Like the other areas in Pokopia, Bubbly Basin is an empty, derelict place initially, and it’s up to you to turn it into a veritable utopia for all sorts of water Pokémon.
Now, because Bubbly Basin is underwater, you can’t just rely on the Pokémon you’ve recruited in the base game to help you restore the area to its former glory. Where you might’ve called on Tinkaton for quickly constructing buildings for example, here you’ll need to first befriend Corphish before you can get started on that clock tower. Unfortunately, building is also much slower without the help of our pink mechanic friend, meaning that you’ll go back to waiting overnight for more intricate buildings to be constructed. New materials are also introduced, so you’ll need to go back to gathering them. Of course, with new materials come loads of new recipes too, and you’ll find that Bubbly Basin introduces lots of new underwater-themed decorative elements alongside much-awaited building blocks like corner windows, with which you can further customize your worlds. You can even build ‘floating’ structures underwater, opening up the creative building process in all sorts of new ways.
One thing that didn’t land so well with us in Bubbly Basin are the game’s swimming controls, which can be quite fiddly, especially if you’re trying to build while swimming. They take some getting used to, especially compared to other abilities like Magnet Rise. Other than that, we were hoping for the DLC to outright fix Pokopia’s most glaring flaw, which started to rear its ugly head the further we got in the base game. That flaw is inventory management, or the lack thereof. Pokopia’s latest update, which is available to all players, not just DLC owners, adds the so-called Portal Pod, which lets you pull items from storage in other areas, but there still isn’t an easy way to sort everything you own. We’re really hoping that one of the next few DLC waves introduces a centralized storage system similar to that of Animal Crossing, if only because Bubbly Basin introduces even more stuff. Speaking of those next few waves, we’ve got two more to look forward to: before the year is over, Pokopia’s Expansion Pass is set to introduce a fashion-themed update that lets you dress up befriended Pokémon with accessories. Meanwhile, a new city is waiting to be discovered in early 2027. Throw in a handful of limited-time events, and we’ve got plenty of reasons to keep returning to Pokopia in the near future. Because so much content is yet to come, however, it’s hard to gauge whether or not the €34.99 price tag is ultimately going to be worth it. Given the massive size of the Bubbly Basin area though, we’re going to recommend that you take the gamble if you enjoy what the base game had to offer.
Conclusion
All in all, Bubbly Basin is simply more of the same. However, given just how surprisingly enjoyable and expansive Pokopia’s base game was, “the same” is exactly what we wanted. The underwater setting and the new Dive ability make Bubbly Basin feel fresh at first, but look past those and you’ll find that, for now at least, Pokopia’s Expansion Pass mostly treads familiar ground. On its own, the DLC isn’t going to convince you if you had little interest in Pokopia in the first place. If you did enjoy the base game, however, expanding your game is a no-brainer, if only because of the smorgasbord of new creative elements that is introduced here.
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