Finally, the great mystery is over: Now we know for sure what happened to the World of Pokemon thanks to Pokemon Pokopia.

For 30 years, Pokemon has been the breeding ground of hundreds of fan theories, from the ‘Where have all the adults gone?’ to the ‘Why only one Lapras in the game?’ and how can we forget the greatest mystery of them all: ‘The Great Pokemon War and the Apocalypse Theory.’

As many of our dear readers might know (but not all, so we will go ahead and explain it for newcomers’ sake), there’s a theory going around for ages that states that the world of Pokemon is actually a Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia.

This idea is constantly reinforced and re-emerges year after year, with small breadcrumbs left on the lore of the anime and manga series, TCG, and the mainline games.

Now I don’t want you all to think I wear a Poke Ball-shaped tinfoil hat (though that would be cool), but this theory might actually be confirmed, thanks to Pokemon Pokopia.

It started as little clues, left behind by the devs (alongside some witty jokes about corporate greed and modern slavery, kudos on GameFreak Narrative Team for that, by the way) in the form of lore pieces that narrated the story of Ditto and its trainer, who had to abandon the planet due to unforeseen events.

Turns out there was an actual Apocalypse that razed the surface of the planet, making the water levels rise (seems like Kyogre’s doing), flooding cities and destroying the Kanto region, among other weird events that destroyed the planet’s ecology and forced humanity to store their precious Pokemon in a huge ARC (PC BOX) made by Bill, probably. As shown by this entry of Professor’s Diary #3:

Today there was a gathering attended by Pokemon Professors from every region. We had a surprising announcement in store.

Increasingly intense weather abnormalities—and the calamities striking each region as a result—show no sign of slowing down.

At this rate, predictions suggest that we will no longer be able to obtain enough food and energy to continue living on this planet.

And we learned that a plan was secretly in motion to evacuate all of humanity into space.

It also seemed that, with a few exceptions, it will not be possible to bring Pokemon with us.

Of course some immediately raised their voices in protest, which is when we heard about the Pokemon Conservation Project.

In Pokopia, Ditto and the rest of the Pokemon were liberated little by little from their Storage Unit, as a failsafe mechanism that would automatically release them from the ‘Arc’ if the humans never returned to the Planet.

This was introduced to the Pokemon Conservation Project thanks to the help of a Mysterious Hacker who joined hands with the Team, and discovered a major flaw in their plan: No Computer System could run without human maintenance forever. So, in order to save the Pokemon, and gradually reintroduce them to the habitat, he programmed a ‘controlled release’ failsafe on the computer to save them little by little as the world recovered.

So, humans are no longer on the planet, that’s a given, and Pokemon are trying to rebuild by cooperating. But as the story grows more complex and the clues left behind by a Mysterious Individual begin to shed light on what actually happened, then fans began to tie the knots.

Given that some clues talk about Brock and Blue being a Gym Leader (Gym Leader Monthly March and July Issues), and a Wanted Information Poster about a Red-Haired boy stealing a Pokemon from Professor Elm’s lab.

Both lore entries could indicate the events on Pokopia couldn’t be that far in the future, or maybe, some of the most recent Pokemon Games happened post-apocalypse, so things are getting complicated to decipher.

Take back the PokeBall-Shaped Tinfoil Hat from the trash bin, and put it on again, since this is becoming wild: Fans are now actually split about this Apocalypse being a thing from the Past (alongside Lt. Surge’s Memories of Pokemon-War) or a future event that has yet to come to the world of Pokemon (species like the Ghost Pikachu and Mosslax reveal a lot of time has passed).

Be it as it may, the fact that the World of Pokemon is a Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia, now has a confirmed canonical event. On the other hand, fans have not one, but two Post-Apocalyptic Theories about the world of Pokemon (yikes, the plot thickens) to worry about, so I’m unsure if this is a silver lining or a gold nugget.

In the meantime, players can keep enjoying Pokopia and learning about the events that led to Ditto’s journey, or celebrate playing Pokemon GO with a special event.