Pokemon Pokopia hides a secret demo for Pokemon Winds and Waves

Newly released Pokemon Pokopia contains a subtle reference to other titles in the main series, Pokemon winds and waves. First announced at Nintendo Direct in September 2025, Pokemon Pokopia comes as well as Pokemon the series celebrates its 30th anniversary. The highest-grossing media brand of all time, Pokemon further rang in the 30th anniversary with the recent Pokemon Presents, which gave fans a look at future games in the franchise.

Co-developed by Game Freak and Omega Force, Pokemon Pokopia is a notable change to the series, serving as a life simulation game centered around Ditto pretending to be human. The new game has already received a lot of praise, even becoming the highest rated entry overall Pokemon series on Metacritic. Between Popopia's success, the recent re-release of the Nintendo Switch Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreenand upcoming Pokemon winds and waves is coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 in 2027, and fans looking to catch them will have plenty of content to enjoy in the coming year.

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Pokemon Pokopia includes a poster referencing the Pokemon Winds and Waves trailer

According to the VGC, Pokemon Pokopia includes a link to a trailer for Pokemon winds and waves which debuted at Pokemon Presents last month. This comes in the form of a poster that players can find at the start of the game that features artwork of several Lumineons floating around. The poster design harkens back to the original trailer Pokemon winds and waveswhere Lumineon is seen during a preview of the upcoming game's underwater visuals trailer.

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Several titles in Pokemon series are known for referencing future entries. IN Pokemon Gold and SilverThe Pokedex entry for Corsola referred to Pacifidlog Town, a small sea town that should appear in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. Also recently reissued Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen featured advice Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilverThe inevitable reveal that the original game's rival character, Silver, is the son of Generation 1 villain Giovanni. Further a Pokemon Sword and Shield wallpaper featuring orange and grapes appeared to be a teaser for other major entries in the Nintendo Switch franchise, Pokemon Scarlet and Violetas these are the two national fruits of Spain on which the Paldea region of the game is based.

Due to Pokemon The franchise's long history of referencing upcoming titles isn't much of a surprise Pokemon Pokopia creates some additional hype for Pokemon winds and waves. Still, it's fascinating to see a spin-off title make such a reference, considering other notable Easter eggs are usually limited to mainline titles. Since Game Freak helped develop Pokemon PokopiaIt seems that the developer felt that the new project was a good place to build hype for the next entries of the main line.

This Lumineon poster might not even be the only reference Pokemon winds and waves players can see in the new game. Pokemon Pokopia is set to host its first limited-time Pokémon Hoppip event, and previous leaks have suggested that the game will receive some DLC in the future. With the spin-off's early success pointing to a long content life cycle, it wouldn't be surprising to see Game Freak used Pokemon Pokopia drum up more excitement for Pokemon winds and waves” release next year.