In Pokémon Pokopia, there are a few options for multiplayer play. You can invite people to hang out on your island (with some limitations), or you can get together and decorate a Cloud Island, which is always live for all players to rejoin, even if the host isn’t around.
You can also use GameShare to play with friends who don’t own Pokopia (and even play with friends who only have an original Nintendo Switch), but this is strictly limited to Palette Town islands, and it comes with its own share of restrictions.
Below we explain how the two multiplayer options (visiting/inviting friends and Cloud Islands) work in Pokémon Pokopia.
How visiting friends works in Pokopia
To visit or invite friends to your island in Pokopia, you just need to access the “Link Cable” menu on the PC, and choose whether to invite people in or if you’re heading out. You can do this over local or wireless connections, though of course, you’ll need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to use the wireless option. Once you pick your option, you’ll either get a link code or you’ll be prompted to enter a link code. Share your link code with your friends if you’re hosting and input the link code if you’re visiting a friend. You’ll arrive at your destination shortly after that.
If you’re hosting, players will load in with no interruptions on your end. Players that are visiting another island will see a loading screen reminiscent of a link trade appear on their screen before they zap on to the island.
The base multiplayer in Pokopia is pretty simple. You can visit players or let players onto your island, but there are some strict limitations about what you can do:
- When not on the “Palette Town” islands, you will automatically get set in “Spectator Mode,” meaning you can’t use any of the Ditto abilities that change the environment (Cut, Rock Smash, Water Gun, Rototiller, or Leafage). You can still use movement-based abilities and Camouflage.
- When not in Palette Town, players cannot access their inventory nor add items to their inventory.
- If you do come to help decorate a Palette Town island, your inventory will start empty. Any items you want to use to help decorate need to come from the host or the host’s island.
- You can’t take any items from a host’s island. If you do try to leave with any items, the host will need to reclaim them via the “Get Friend’s Stuff” option on the multiplayer menu.
You can set your Palette Town island to “Spectator Mode” as well, if you don’t want any visiting players to make changes to your island.
That being said, you may wonder, “What’s the point of multiplayer then?” Well, there are a few things you can do that are actually quite useful:
- You can visit players and buy from their daily shop to get a new selection of items. The visitor will have the same shop selection as the host, though one person buying an item from the shop won’t make it sell out for others. If you have a rare recipe in your shop, you can invite others to come and buy it! Any purchased items will be sent to your PC.
- You can take photos of items you want that your friends have, whether it’s fossils, relics, or just funky furniture they may have found. You can then use the 3D printer in the Pokémon Center to make the items using Pokémetal.
- You can interact with your friends’ Pokémon and habitats, which will half-add the Pokémon and habitats to your respective dexes. These won’t become fully registered, but you will gain information on these Pokémon if you don’t have it already.
On a less-helpful-but-still-fun note, you can also take photos with your friends, and play hide-and-seek with them using the Camouflage ability.
How Cloud Islands work in Pokopia
To play on a Cloud Island, you’ll just need to pick the “Link Cable” option at the PC, and select “Play on a Cloud Island.” From there you can choose to make a new one, head to an existing one (made by a friend), or revisit one you’ve been to already. When you make a Cloud Island, you’ll get an eight-digit alphanumeric code to share. To join an island, you just need to input this code.
Cloud Islands are a bit like a dedicated server to play multiplayer with your friends. Rather than waiting on your buddy to get online and invite you, these islands can be accessed even if the original creator isn’t around. There can be four players total playing on the Cloud Island, with one slot being reserved for the host player. Each player can only host one Cloud Island. If you want to be the host of another, you need to get rid of your first one.
The Cloud Islands do combine all the game’s main areas together, so you won’t be without resources or access to anything from one biome.
The Cloud Islands aren’t a pure sandbox where you can just spawn items and place them wherever you want. There is a bit of required progression here, depending on how far you’ve gotten in the game on your main island. For example, you’ll want to be able to cook up a hamburger steak so you can power up your Rock Smash and collect Pokémetal, but you will need to find copper first to make a frying pan. You can’t even make the frying pan without copper ingots, which you’ll need to smelt. You can get a furnace from the PC shop once you hit Environment Level 2 or you can craft one (if you have the recipe) using iron ores you find by breaking the metal beams around the map. Do you see what we’re getting at here?
Here are some of the other quirks of Pokopia‘s Cloud Islands that we noticed after putzing around for a bit:
- Just like the regular multiplayer, you do not bring any items with you to the island.
- Your Ditto abilities that you’ve unlocked so far on your personal island do come with you to the Cloud Island.
- All crafted or purchased items you get on the Cloud Island stay on there.
- The Cloud Island has its own Environment Level, challenges, and shop, all accessed from the PC.
- Any crafting recipes unlocked from sparkling water pools or from the aforementioned shop do stay unlocked permanently, and can be used on your main island.
- The island has its own “Cloud Island Pokédex,” that is separate from your normal Pokédex.
- Habitat hints found on this island do log into your normal Habitat Dex.
- Pokémon you find for the first time on Cloud Islands will not fully register in your regular Pokédex. They’ll appear in your Pokédex, but with an opaque icon, indicating that they haven’t been fully found.
- Pokémon that are usually restricted to your Palette Town area can appear on the Cloud Island.
- Relics you dig up on your Cloud Island do register in your Collection menu, even though you can’t bring them home.
- You can, however, take photos of these items and use the 3D printer to print them on your main island.
If you’re starting out in Pokémon Pokopia, we have guides to help you spruce up your island. We have both a Pokédex and Habitat Dex to assist in figuring out what can spawn where, and what you need to build to summon your favorite creatures. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can also check out our beginner’s guide for some early tips and tricks to help smooth out your journey.
We also have walkthroughs for the important requests that progress the story: “Yawn up a Storm!,” “Brighten Things Up!,” “Time to Party!,” and “Build the Huge Building!”
