Pokémon Pokopia Bubbly Basin DLC Finally Gives the Best Type of Pokémon Their Due

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Published Aug 5, 2026, 3:30 PM EDT

Give it up for my pal Luvdisc!

A Finneon and Luvdisc chill together in Pokemon Pokopia

There’s a lot to love about Pokémon Pokopia, the Nintendo Switch 2’s cozy life sim. I enjoy cleaning up destroyed towns, creating habitats, and seeing familiar monsters in a whole new light. I’ve had one complaint since I first played it though: It’s a game severely lacking in fish. Due to the fact that so much of Pokopia is centered around building structures on dry land, the Pokédex is understandably light on underwater critters.

Thankfully, my hyper-specific critique has been addressed with Bubbly Basin, the first bit of DLC in Pokopia’s Expansion Pass. The paid update takes you underwater as you use the power of Dive to fix up a submerged town. It’s not all that different from previous biomes; you’ll grow watermelons, build submarines, and find family familiar locations. The twist is that you’ll get help from some fishy friends along the way. It’s a welcome update that gives fans an opportunity to appreciate the series’ aquatic designs at a time when Pokémon feels more landlocked than ever.

Ditto talks to a Horsea in Pokemon Pokopia.

Though the DLC begins with the seal-like Popplio guiding you to Bubby Basin, you’ll quickly meet some lesser-utilized Pokémon that can populate the town. Finneon! Luvdisc! Sharpedo! It’s a who’s who of adorable water-type critters who get a chance to freely bound around under the sea rather than float on the surface in recent Pokémon games.

It’s a delight to see some of those monsters getting a personality infusion in their natural habitat. Horsea is my favorite neighbor so far; it’s hard not to smile when you see the little seahorse twirling in happy circles. Stunfisk is especially flat, and hilariously insecure about it. I’m especially happy to see Chinchou and Lanturn in town, an underrated evolutionary line who can swim to their hearts’ content in Bubby Basin.

The DLC is even helping me appreciate some critter designs that have never stuck with me until now. Corsola is especially adorable as it shambles around the sea floor with its coral nubs. I’ve long written off Corpfish as a Krabby knockoff, but the cuter crab design is particularly precious in Pokopia. There’s so much to admire here in a habitat built specifically to show off Pokémon’s aquatic life.

It makes sense that Bubbly Basin feels especially fresh in context of the series’ recent games. While games like Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were heavy on water-types (to a fault), fish haven’t been as well represented in the broader series’ move away from random battles. In games like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, you now get to see monsters walking around the world. You don’t often get to go underwater in these games, though, so the selection of true water-dwellers can feel limited. And even when they do appear, the character models don’t have quite as much space to be fully expressive in the open-world. (Magikarp is an exception, because he’s a career flop.) Bubbly Basin solves that problem within Pokopia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it winds up being a sneak preview of how the upcoming Winds and Waves will handle sea life.

All of this is just a stopgap to my dream Pokémon game: a reimagining of educational PC classic Odell Down Under, but with Pokémon. If you can’t see the vision, try Bubbly Basin. You’ll leave wishing you could watch an aquarium full of Luvdisc swim around.

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