Pokémon Winds and Waves may have teased a legendary already

It's a bird! It's a plane! Whatever it is, Switch 2 fans are convinced a small detail in Winds and Waves reveal trailer hides something big

Pokémon Winds and Waves might bring the series into totally new territory with a fresh slate of cute starters, but the detail fans are freeze-framing isn't what you'd expect at all. Near the end of the trailer, the camera spends a few seconds zooming out to give folks a better look at the scope of the open-world titles. There are some smaller islands and some larger terrain in the background, all of which are surrounded by a glistening ocean. And there are a handful of clouds.

Most of these clouds look perfectly normal, except one on the bottom right. It is dark and shaped bizarrely, almost as if it were a creature of some kind. So now, fans are theorizing.

Is it a Gyarados? Maybe that sounds strange, but the water dragon is a flying dual-type — so theoretically it can take to the skies. We don't usually see a skyfaring Gyarados in the main games, where the piscine monster is usually just floating in the air. Gyarados has gone sky-high in games like Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but the sight is unusual enough that many players thought they were looking at a glitch the first time they saw it. Hilariously, Gyarados can't even learn the move Fly in the games!

Plenty of fans wonder how it is that Gyarados can fly at all. First off, Pokémon is not real and doesn't have to make sense. But critically, Gyarados is based on a Chinese myth about carps who manage to climb a special waterfall and get blessed at the top, where they become dragons. The games make this connection overtly, like when Pokémon Snap players chased a Magikarp all the way to a waterfall, where it eventually transforms into a Gyarados.

OK, if it's just a Gyarados, why obscure it? The trailer is full of monsters we've seen before. Gyarados is a fan favorite; there's not really a reason to hide it.

This leads us to the other big theory floating around right now: is Game Freak teasing a new monster? Given the majestic nature of the scene, some can't help but wonder if we're actually looking at one of the legendaries in the game. Normally, legendaries take after the names of the games — so we will likely get a special monster who can fly in Pokémon Winds. While Gyarados seems like the more reasonable explanation, the shadow seems to be a little stockier than you'd expect for that monster's silhouette.

Of course, there's always the boring possibility that the cloud doesn't mean anything at all. Maybe it's just a weirdly-shaped rain cloud. The apparent cloud does seem to change shape when the camera pulls in to dive into the ocean, as do the surrounding clouds. It could just be that Game Freak wanted to show off its new cloud tech. But even as it transforms, there's still something strange about the cloud, no?

I won't be shocked when Pokémon Winds and Waves comes out in 2027 and everyone finds out they were obsessing over literally nothing. For now, with only a short reveal to go off of, that single cloud is inspiring tons of comments on the reveal trailer. At least this is more wholesome than the time the community couldn't get over a single Pokémon tree!