Pokémon Pokopia teases a possible new Winds and Waves monster

Like any new Pokémon generation, Pokémon Winds and Waves will introduce new monsters to collect. So far, developer Game Freak has only officially unveiled the three starters who will kick off your adventure. The newly-released Pokémon Pokopia, however, might already be hinting at one creature players can expect from Winds and Waves in 2027.

First, some background. Shellos is a water-type sea slug from the Sinnoh region that comes in two different forms: a pink version of the invertebrate, and a blueish variant of the mollusk. Pink Shellos hails from the West Sea, whereas its counterpart comes from the Eastern Sea. According to Bulbapedia, the color divergences are theorized to be due to differences in temperature as well as diet.

If there are only two colors of Shellos, why does Pokémon Pokopia refer to a yellow shade of the creature? Players of the life sim have been left scratching their heads after reading some in-game text that mentions that researchers in that world are looking for “heretofore unknown yellow Shellos.”

Based on the wording, no one in the world of Pokopia has found these fabled yellow Shellos. A Shellos with that colorway also does not appear anywhere in Pokopia once the player actually progresses through the game. So, what gives?

This could just be some throwaway text that plays with established Pokémon fiction without actively altering the lore. But we do know that Pokémon Winds and Waves will place heavy emphasis on the weather and seafaring. At one point in the games’ debut trailer, the camera plows into the water — which has now kicked off rumors that Winds and Waves will bring back a diving mechanic.

A new Shellos would fit with the larger theme of Winds and Waves perfectly, then. The yellow color could easily be explained by the location of the new region and its unique ecosystem. “Shellos lives along seashores; its color becomes more vibrant the better quality of the waters it lives in,” Bulbapedia notes.

Beyond the conceptual synergy, Game Freak might also be influenced by the existence of a real-world yellow sea slug. This yellow gastropod, known as the Thecacera pacifica, is sometimes referred to as the Pikachu nudibranch, according to Wikipedia. What’s more, the Pokémon leaks that correctly predicted Winds and Waves before it was announced claim that the new area will loosely be based on Indonesia — where the Pikachu nudibranch resides in real life.

Variants of existing Pokémon are fairly common in mainline games, but Game Freak could potentially push the yellow Shellos idea in some novel directions. Per Pokopia, the new Shellos colorway could correspond with the apparent day and night cycle visible in the Winds and Waves trailer. It could also be another evolutionary lineage for Shellos, much like the branched evolutions of monsters like Slowpoke and Scyther. Previous Pokédex entries say that Shellos is “closely related” to Shellder; a new variant could make that connection more explicit.

Of course, this is all speculation. Shellos might not be present in Pokémon Winds and Waves at all. It’s worth remembering that Pokopia takes place in a [spoiler alert!] post-apocalyptic version of Kanto that presumably exists after whatever happens in Pokémon Winds and Waves. If we don’t get a new Shellos, I’m crossing my fingers that Pokémon Winds and Waves might still throw us a bone in the form of a new Eevee. But if Nurse Joy can have a makeover in Winds and Waves, so can Shellos.