Older leaks about Pokemon Champions, the upcoming strategy battle game starring the most famous gathering of collectible monsters in the world, have been lent some extra legitimacy thanks to recent reveals at the July 2025 Pokemon Presents showcase. There are still a lot of things left to be officially revealed about Pokemon Champions, but some of the rumors are starting to sound more believable to fans after the showcase.
Pokemon Champions was revealed in February, promising a spin-off from the mainline monster-catching RPG series that focuses specifically on the franchise's turn-based monster battles. Not much was revealed about the game in those early days, with the initial trailer focusing on the legacy of two-player Pokemon battling, from the old link cable-based Game Boy matches of the late '90s to modern gaming on the Nintendo Switch and mobile phones.
Related Pokemon Champions Game Includes a Series-First Feature
A feature showcased in the Pokemon Champions trailer is something the series has never seen before, and fans are speculating about its impact.
PostsIn the lead-up to the July Pokemon Presents, a couple of lengthy posts made some bold and precise claims about Pokemon Champions that many may have initially dismissed as mere speculation. Made in May and June, those two posts have recently been compiled on Reddit, and they're starting to turn heads after a couple of their predictions were confirmed with the release of the game's latest trailer earlier this week. Specifically, the posts collectively claimed that players will be able to use accumulated points to level up their Pokemon and that each Pokemon's Effort Values, or EVs, can be changed at any time. That certainly looked to be the case in the July 22 trailer, as the section on training showed a player using sliders to decrease their Pokemon's maximum HP in favor of boosting its speed.
Pokemon Champions Leaks
With that rumor essentially confirmed, along with another about compatibility with the Pokemon Home cloud service, fans may be looking at the posts' other claims with less speculation. These include a potential release date of January 23, 2026, and a report that the game will support around 350 different Pokemon at launch. Ranked and private battles have now been confirmed, but the earlier post claims the game will also include a Battle Frontier-like feature, presenting players with ever-increasing challenges that can reward them with special items not available in the in-game store. The rumors also suggest that the game will keep players guessing with computer-controlled opponents and gym leaders that are constantly changing.
CloseThe latter post offered a slightly different perspective, claiming that Pokemon Champions' single-player mode will feature a campaign with two different paths, and that each path must be completed before the other can be started. This set of claims also goes into detail about natures and held items in Pokemon, stating that these features and some stronger Pokemon will be locked behind a progression wall and not initially available to players. And while the recent trailer has confirmed both single and double battles, this set of rumors states there will be more ways to play, including triple, rotation, and inverse battles, in addition to raids.
