The National Dex in 'Pokémon Scarlet' and 'Violet' is Likely to be Limited

Since the early days of the Pokémon series, the main goal of the most dedicated trainers has been to catch 'em all. And many have tried! Across nine generations of games, hundreds of different Pokémon species have been available for trainers to hunt down and collect, and many have managed to amass their own collection across the generations.

With the leaks for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet already coming out, players are wondering what they'll see in Generation IX, and if the new game will have all of the Pokémon in previous generations. The game has promised to be bigger and better than the previous titles, but will the game let trainers fulfill the series's tagline?

Technically, there has only ever been one generation of Pokémon games to have featured all of the Pokémon currently in the national Dex: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon featured all 807 Pokémon that were available at the time when it was released. That being said, not long after the games' debut, Meltan and its evolution, Melmetal, were released, though they were not available in Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon. Instead, players would have to capture them in Pokémon GO.

Since then, there has never been a Pokémon game that has featured every Pokémon available in the national Dex. Not including the Pokémon that are to be included as part of Generation IX, there are currently 924 Pokémon across the franchise. The upcoming games are expected to set the franchise at over 1000 different species — meaning being able to catch them all in one title is close to impossible.

It's not the trainer's determination that makes this impossible, though. When Pokémon Sword and Shield were released, Pokémon that were not available in the game's regional PokéDex could not be transferred to the game, finally limiting the number of Pokémon species one game could hold.

At this time, the closest you can come to collecting all of the different Pokémon across all generations in one place it to either store them in Pokémon HOME or work tirelessly to find them all in Pokémon GO.