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With the upcoming release of the Indigo Disk DLC in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, there’s a lot of excitement in the air about what might be added to the final addition of Gen 9’s main series games. One thing that was confirmed in an official trailer back in August is that there will be a new type coming, just not necessarily in the way people expect. Very little is known about this new type, however, other than the brief clip shown, so some are still hopeful that this may wind up being a bonafide 19th type for the franchise, after all.
If this does wind up being a new type, the possibilities are high for what that could mean concerning the future of Pokemon. If it’s not a new type, then it certainly should be one, because the battle meta of Pokemon is in dire need of some balancing that only a new type can help with.
A New Pokemon Type
What’s shown at around the 2:25 mark in the official video from Game Freak suggests a new type in the sense that it’s a symbol that doesn’t match up with any of the other symbols that correspond to different types with Scarlet and Violet‘s Terastallization system. The symbol that shows up is, instead, very similar to what can be seen on the back of Terapagos, the new Legendary Pokemon that will play a major role in the story of The Indigo Disk. That makes it seem on the surface like the teaser may just be leading up to a Terapagos-specific feature that allows the Pokemon to utilize Terastallization in a way others can’t.
If it is actually a brand new type, however, and Terapagos is meant to be the debut Pokemon for the series’ 19th typing, that would generate massive hype moving into the 10th generation of the series, whenever that’s set to arrive. There are a lot of different type combinations possible with the current 18 available, but Game Freak is running out now that there are more than 1,000 Pokemon available. As of writing, there are only nine remaining type combinations that have never been utilized by any Pokemon. A 19th type would significantly boost this number.
Checks and Balances
The most concrete reason for the addition of a 19th type is balancing the battle system. When it comes to competitive Pokemon battling, there have always been certain types that are more favored than others. In the early generations, Psychic and Dragon ruled over all, while in recent years types like Steel, Dark, and Fairy have been seeing a lot of preference. At the same time, types like Bug and Grass have never had much luck, being consistently overlooked for their abundant weaknesses.
If there is a 19th type, Game Freak should have it very specifically geared around which types need buffs and which need nerfs among the current state of the games. It wouldn’t necessarily fix Bug and Grass to have one extra resistance, since their plethora of other weaknesses still remain, but it would give them some substantial leverage over what they have now.
Ultimately, a 19th type being added with the Indigo Disk would absolutely be a favorable outcome over a simple Tera Type gimmick given to Terapagos, especially considering Game Freak’s habit of leaving old battle mechanics behind, which would effectively ensure any special Terrastalization mechanic given to Terapagos would quickly become irrelevant once other games are produced.
