Ever wondered why Pokémon Legends: Z-A is called that? There are a few notable coincidences already – Zygarde is likely to be the key mascot of this entry, with the previous game’s being Arceus; and the mysterious character AZ, pronounced as “A, Z” returns here in a seemingly promintent role also – but now we have another explanation, via a new, seemingly quite important feature announced today, as part of the game’s surprise appearance in the Nintendo Direct.
The new feature is called the Z-A Royale, a trainer-on-trainer tournament that takes place in Lumiose City after night falls. Here, the city’s wild areas, previously outlined in Pokémon Legends Z-A’s first full trailer, will turn into Battle Zones, where you can find opposing trainers waiting for you. It’s mentioned that only “fierce” and “highly skilled trainers” are invited to participate, though that’s swiftly followed by footage of you kicking things off with a Lv. 13 Totodile.
Earn enough Ticket Points, meanwhile, from defeating opponents and picking up ‘bonus cards’ by fulfilling certain challenges specified by the cards, and you’ll earn a Challenger’s Ticket, a requirement for undertaking a ‘promotion match’ where you can go up a rank. You’ll start at Rank Z and, you guessed it, eventually climb to rank A – hence, Z-A. Curiously, it’s mentioned that “trainers who reach the top are said to have a wish granted”, which is likely a hint at the feature’s role in the main story. Maybe you need a particular wish granted to defeat this entry’s big bad?
In the trailer we also saw a little bit more of the new, hybrid battle system, that juggles real-time dodging with the order-based attacks of Legends: Arceus, and there are a few nice little twists in there for the eagle-eyed Pokémon fans.
For one, now you can surprise other trainers, rather than the other way round – successfully sneak up and startle them before they make eye contact with you and you can use a surprise attack. This will always result in a critical hit, we’re told, dealing hefty extra damage, in a similar method to the mechanic first introduced in Legends: Arceus that previously let you get an entire extra attack in on your opponent.
We also got a first glimpse at how Mega Evolution will work in practice – an Alakazam was shown mega evolving into Mega Alakazam, when four bars had been filled in a glowing gauge in the bottom right. How you fill those up isn’t clear just yet, though at one point the player-character’s Lucario uses an attack and the gauge increases slightly, so it may be down to using attacks – or certain attacks – to charge it up.
Curiously, there’s also a little figure of a person running over on the left of the in-battle screen, with the dash button icon next to it. At first glance, it looks like this might mean you can actually run away from trainer battles for the first time in the series’ history, though we wouldn’t be surprised if this was a feature only limited to these special night-time tournament bouts. In wild battles, by contrast, as we also saw in this new trailer, it’s notable that you can just physically run away, rather than having to select it as an option.
Last but not least, this trailer also confirmed a few more Pokémon that’ll be available in the games, most notably the full trio of elemental monkey Pokémon and their evolutions – Pansage and Simisage; Pansear and Simisear; and Panpour and Simipour – that were previously only available back in the X and Y and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire days of generation six.
For more on Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which won’t release until “late 2025”, it’s worth looking through our roundup of everything revealed in the big Pokémon Presents earlier this year. You can also look forward to some long-wished-for Pokémon Lego sets some time in 2026.
