A premise on nomenclature
Before delving into the analysis of the games’ timeline, an introduction on the nomenclature we’ll use in the rest of this article is necessary. When discussing about parallel realities, Pokémon is frustratingly inconsistent in the words it uses: completely different concepts are all labelled under vague terms like “worlds” [せかい] or “dimensions” [次元] interchangeably, and this obviously spread a wave of confusion and misunderstanding among the community.
Here, we’ll try to separate more firmly the different concepts involving multiple realities in order to depict a clearer picture of the Pokémon Multiverse. Take in mind none of this terminology is official, nor used consistently through in-game dialogues: the only real way to get the nature of a certain “world” the narrative introduces, is to look at the provided info and try to determine in what category it falls.
By definition, a Multiverse requires the coexistence of multiple universes within it. A universe — going by the usual definition — is something encompassing everything that exists, especially all physicial matter. In this sense, every universe in the Pokémon Multiverse is a world encompassing all that there is. It’s something with a precise start — described in Sinnoh’s Original Story — and that follows a certain, well-defined course of events. Different universes can diverge just because of smaller details, or being vastly different from each other.
In the former category lie multiple versions and different save-files. According to a 1997 interview, cartridges were always supposed to be different worlds in Satoshi Tajiri’s original design:
“So, we randomly assigned auto-generated ID numbers from 1 to 65,000 to every game cartridge. With the cartridge ID’s randomly determined, Pokémon caught in those games would all carry that ID number… So long as someone wasn’t trading with 65,000 different people, the odds of trading with someone with the same ID number were unlikely. With both partners having different numbers, their Pokémon would be entering different worlds when traded. Then, once the number is assigned, it would never change throughout the course of the game. I talked to Miyamoto about how we’d make players understand that every cartridge is different when they buy one, and he told me the system sounded interesting, but it was a bit difficult to grasp. He said if players can’t tell just by looking at it, then it won’t work out, and it would be better if the games’ color or appearance were different. I was shocked I was even allowed to do that. I told him it would really help me out if I could. So it was from trying to differentiate ID numbers that the idea to symbolically change the colours came about.”
According to Tajiri, splitting the game in two versions was a decision made out of the impossibility of programming thousands of different parallel worlds. But it is merely symbolic: every single cartridge is meant to be its own parallel universe.
“At the time I was really fixating on different ideas, thinking about the buyer’s perspective. The shape of a forest, the Pokémon that appear — I wanted to make a game that would be different for everyone, but it was difficult. So I went to consult with Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo, and we ended up deciding to make it so depending on the color — whether Red or Green — the worlds would be parallel but different.”
Different versions coexisting as parallel universes is a concept that was also explored in the games more directly, although only much later. Pokémon Black and White has a man in Opelucid City suggesting the existence of a world where the city looks more antique/futuristic, clearly alluding to the opposite version:
“I’ve heard that in another world, there’s another Opelucid City that looks very futuristic/every old-timey.”
With the formal introduction of the Multiverse in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Maxie and Archie also wonder if a version of them who pursued evil schemes exists somewhere:
Maxie: “There has been something on my mind ever since the incident in Sootopolis… In another time, or perhaps another world, one only a fraction of an inch removed from our own, it seems very likely that it would have been us in Team Magma standing against you in that battle… Perhaps we would have been the ones trying to revive Groudon and obtain its terrible power for ourselves…”
Archie: “I’ve gotta say…it’s been weighing on my mind ever since Sootopolis, but… You know, if we lived in a slightly different world, it might have been me and my crew that you’d had to stop… It’s not a stretch to think that we might have tried reviving Kyogre to try to use its power for ourselves… You know?”
It seems unlikely, however, trading Pokémon from different save-files is meant to be contextualized as multiversal interactions. The scientists working in Mossdeep Space Center relegate Zinnia’s idea of parallel universes as unsubstantiated fantasy, and the Link Cable developed by Marco Cosmos was actually intended to teleport the meteor just really far away — to which the Lorekeeper fears the process on a large scale may require too much energy to handle, tearing apart the veil between worlds:
“What kind of fool are you! You have no substantive proof, and yet you claim another world, one just like our own, exists? Out of this fantasy, you — you have destroyed our only hope!”
“The Link Cable? So it is to be a warp system…”
“But there’s no need to worry. Based on our theory, we can at least guarantee that we will be sending it away from our planet. However, we’ve realized that we will need more energy than originally anticipated to control the Link Cable properly…”
Trading through Link Cable technology is just meant to connect Trainers from faraway places, and even people of science are not aware of the existence of the Multiverse. In other words, interactions with other players are just a gameplay mechanic that doesn’t seem to be consistent narrative-wise.
That being said, we have not to fall under the assumption every game is meant to be separate from its previous and later iterations. Generation II came out as direct sequels, and the Unova second titles further proved all the different universes represented by infinite save-files can be put together in a more or less precise chronology.
As every single cartridge is a separate universe, we can’t draw a direct connection between versions. In other words, we can’t say Gold is specifically a sequel to Red. Depending on what you played, Red could be followed by Silver, and Blue by Crystal. There are infinite branches, and there’s no point in trying to find a more precise sequence of events. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, Black 2 and White 2 being the most obvious example.
An official timeline was indeed confirmed on Twitter by the scenario writer Toshinobu Matsumiya, although the tweet was deleted shortly after. The information dates back to 2014, before Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out exploring better the concept of the Multiverse, which may be why it was removed in the first place [other than developers being unwilling to spread official answers outside conventional media]: the chronology provided adds up to what the games tell us, but it fails to acknowledge the Kalos titles were set in a different world, something Game Freak may have decided only later in development.
If anything, the tweet confirms a timeline does exist for the games, and they are not conceived as their own separate bubbles. According to Junichi Masuda, however, being consistent with it is not the main of Game Freak concerns. In his own words from a 2019 Game Informer interview:
“It starts to get a little complicated if you pay too much attention to timelines. Like, there might be a professor that appears and it wouldn’t make sense at all if we applied that kind of timeline logic. So we try not to apply it too rigorously. Maybe one hint is that if a character is appearing with Professor Oak, they’re living in the same era. Rather than some series where it makes sense to have the timeline progress as you go and the story evolve, the approach that Pokémon takes is expanding the world, like what the regions are, and making it richer as we go. Rather than a timeline, it’s more of a physical space thing.”
Pokémon creative team is more focused on expanding the world the games are set in rather than give us a precise series of events lining up perfectly with one another. So, while a timeline does exist, some details may feel out of place if looked upon too closely. For example, Professor Oak being present both in Johto and Sinnoh despite Generation II and IV titles are set around the same time should not be overthought: he’s just there to represent a common motif, and we can just imagine he travels really fast between regions due to his studies.
With the basis covered, we have now to ask ourselves what a “timeline” really is. We’ll define a timeline as a general chain of temporal coordinates. In order for a universe to belong to said timeline, certain events and criteria have to be strictly followed. So, while some degree of freedom can be taken in minor details [like version exclusives Pokémon, or the name of the main character], when the chronology starts to diverge too much from the original fixed points, we fall in a different timeline.
From the developers’ perspective, changing the timeline has historically been done in order to retcon certain aspects of the Pokémon World that had to be reimagined in a new sensibility, or to introduce new concepts which would not fit in pre-established canon. The case of Mega Evolution is explanatory: Ruby is a different universe both from Sapphire and from Omega Ruby — but while the differences with the former are too trivial for splitting the timeline, this is no longer true with the Hoenn remakes, which presented a new fixed event in the Kalos War birthing the process of Mega Evolution, completely absent in the previous games.
Up to this date, we have been able to explore at least four distinct timelines in the mainline series. Keeping in mind the names are completely made up for convenience’s sake, we can list:
- Original Timeline [Generation I-II]
- New Timeline [Generation III-V]
- Mega Timeline [Generation VI onwards]
- Let’s Go Timeline [Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee!]
In this article, we’ll try to analyze each, explaining why they need to be kept as separate, and to outline a precise order in which the games take place based on internal dialogues and external sources. Because of the definition we’ve given, the general approach for this will be to not overlap information from different timelines as much as possible: a temporal coordinate given in the Original Timeline could easily be off in the New Timeline, and so on.
Although not falling in any of those clusters, we also had examples of other parallel universes in the canon. Team Rainbow Rocket is made of villainous leaders travelling from realities in which they succeeded in their plans, and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon confirmed the Ultra Spaces are none other than universes belonging to timelines in which the course of history vastly diverged from ours. Paradox Pokémon equally came from worlds we are not familiar with. These, however, will be covered in separate articles — as here our focus is solely on the games’ chronology.
Before getting started, a final digression has to be made to clarify the concept of dimension. Although this term is used inconsistently to refer to different universes, we’ll mention those specifically in order to describe all the planes of existence inner to a single reality.
In Pokémon, like many other fantasy stories, what we can see and experience of our own universe is just but a fraction of the all-encompassing everything that it consists of. In a single universe, there are places you cannot reach simply moving in space and time: they are separate, independent bubbles of the cosmos — and the veil between dimensions can only be tore apart through specific means.
To better understand this concept, it could help visualizing the Multiverse as a metropolis. While the skyscrapers represent different universes, dimensions are the floors in each building. Only, the elevator is normally broken and we are blocked on the Material World — as we’ll conventionally refer to from now on.
The most evident case of a parallel dimension is the Distortion World [やぶれたせかい]. A world on the opposite side of ours is how Giratina’s domain is described, and this fits perfectly the definition. It’s to note, then, every single universe has its own Distortion World — which is why we can catch multiple copies of the Legendary Pokémon in different cartridges. Even if the settings are far less explored, the same can be said for the Time World and the Space World in which Dialga and Palkia reside, as well as the Origin World briefly seen in Legends: Arceus introduction.
To this, we have to add two more realities to the list: Generation V has affirmed the Dream World [ドリームワールド] as another, separate dimension able to interact with our side — which we’ll often refer to as “waking world” when in contraposition to the sleeping realm. And although we cannot be sure if it functions on a universal or multiversal scale, the Spirit World [れいかい] in which the souls of the dead reside has also to be taken in account.
This is the rough dimensional structure of a universe as it’s currently presented in the games. We’re not going to elaborate on dimensions here, as separate articles will be required to fully unravel each one of them, but this was a necessary premise to clear up some understandable confusion. We can now get started.
Original Timeline
The launch on the Japanese market of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green in 1996 marks the birth of the franchise, as well as the start of our reconstruction.
As established earlier, the existence of multiple versions is just a symbolic representation of the infinite parallel worlds the game was originally planned to procedurally generate. Then, the release of Pokémon Blue in the same year and of Pokémon Yellow in 1998 don’t complicate things much: they were all meant to be slightly different takes of the same events, and this approach will be consistently carried up to current days.
The original idea behind the Pokémon World was extremely different than the modern take, and the fictional setting created by Satoshi Tajiri was much more similar to our Earth: real-life places were mentioned multiple times, and the existence of Pokémon was more of an extraordinary feat than something well established during the course of human history.
Other than games themselves, one of the main sources of information on these early concepts is the book “Pokédex” published by Creatures Inc. in 1996 and recently translated by Dr. Lava. The volume contains tons of trivia and worldbuilding ideas we will eventually analyze in dedicated posts, but what it’s relevant here is it confirms the first games are actually set in 1996:
As of 1996, thanks to the investigative and research efforts of Prof. Oak, 150 species of Pokémon have been discovered. We are gradually gaining insights into their behavior, lifecycle, evolution, nature and so on. This guidebook examines the presently discovered 150 species of Pokémon by their habitats such as grasslands, mountains, and near bodies of water. The descriptive text for each Pokémon includes only facts known to date. It must also be noted that not all species of Pokémon have been discovered. We intend to continue with our research with the intention of publishing updated guides when new Pokémon are found.
This is one of the few examples of our calendar being used in Pokémon. Another case can be found in the same Pokédex book, which confirms Porygon was created in 1995 — only one year prior the events of the games.
In 1995, Silph Co., which undertakes R&D into Pokémon and related products, successfully applied state-of-the-art technology to create this manmade Pokémon.
The only other mention is made by an old man in Pewter Museum of Science, confirming the first Moon landing also happened the same day of ours.
“July 20, 1969! Humankind first set foot on the moon that day. I bought a color TV just so I could watch that news.”
Regardless of the implication a calendar system based on Christianity was used in this version of the Pokémon World, the premise of the games was simple enough: Professor Oak classified all 150 Pokémon known to the scientific community and put their data on a digital encyclopedia known as Pokédex. As the main character, we have to travel across the region to catch all the mysterious creatures inhabiting the world in order to confirm and expand the Professor’s research.
TGC confirmed the first Pokédex model to be called ポケモン図鑑HANDY505 [Pokédex HANDY505]. While this isn’t much relevant per se, serial numbers for later designs will be useful to put some things together.
In 1999 Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver came out, bringing with them a second wave of Pocket Monsters, and a third version named Pokémon Crystal was added to the roster one year later. In continuity with the publishing timeline, the new games were direct sequels set three years after the originals — meaning the events in Johto take place in 1999. This is remarked by a great number of in-game dialogues. Here some examples:
“It was around three years ago. TEAM ROCKET was up to no good with POKEMON. But justice prevailed — a young kid broke ’em up.”
“I wonder how many kinds of POKEMON there are in the world. Three years ago, PROF.OAK said that there were 150 different kinds.”
“I knew you were coming… Three years ago I had a vision of your arrival. You’re after my BADGE.”
The nature of direct sequels becomes more and more evident as we are able to explore the Kanto region again in the post-game, from the volcano of Cinnabar Island having erupted to Gym Leaders and Elite Four replacements. Accordingly so, the Pokédex has now been updated up to 251 specimen — and the TGC confirms the new model is called 新ポケモン図鑑HANDY808 [New Pokédex HANDY808].
Professor Oak is the one giving us the encyclopedia, implying he was in charge of the main update, but the games tell us Professor Elm largely contributed to the project. According to an NPC in New Bark Town the man recently discovered some new Pokémon, and with his interest in Pokémon Eggs is easy to imagine which.
“Yo, [character]! I hear PROF.ELM discovered some new POKEMON.”
“POKEMON. Where do they come from? Where are they going? Why has no one ever witnessed a POKEMON’s birth? I want to know! I will dedicate my life to the study of POKEMON! … It’s a part of PROF.ELM’s research papers.”
Indeed, another NPC in New Bark confirms us Pikachu’s pre-evolution was found out by Elm himself, as they remark the researcher’s interest in evolution. In fewer words, the wider Pokémon roster was clearly finalized thanks to the Johtonian Professor.
“PIKACHU is an evolved POKEMON. I was amazed by PROF.ELM’s findings. He’s so famous for his research on POKEMON evolution.”
The improvement in Pokémon research eventually led to a better understanding of Type effectiveness. Other than better contextualize some changes in the matchup chart, this is why Steel and Dark Types are described as just recently discovered:
“JASMINE uses the newly discovered steel-type. I don’t know very much about it.”
“I am JASMINE, a GYM LEADER. I use the steel-type. …Do you know about the steel-type? It a type that was only recently discovered.”
Jasmine once used Rock Types like Onix, suggesting when her ace evolution triggered and the Steel Type was officially discovered she decided to switch in specialization:
“JASMINE used to use rock POKEMON like ONIX.”
The timeline thus far was easy to understand just by playing the games and reading the dialogues provided, but this was nothing more than a brief moment of clarity: soon, things were about to get more convoluted.
New Timeline
The franchise took a different turn in 2002 with Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire, to which we have to add the third version released two years later as Pokémon Emerald. With the games becoming a worldwide phenomenon, some of the original ideas Satoshi Tajiri conceived for his setting had to be recontextualized for a wider audience, and because of this the Pokémon World started to diverge more and more from our Earth.
To be fair, this wasn’t a process that happened at a precise moment in time. Generation II games already showed the intention to separate the two realities, with the region being called with the fictional name “Johto”, contrary to the real-life Kanto. Generation III still had, on the other hand, leftovers of old ideas, with various Pokédex entries carrying real world toponyms from previous games and even adding some anew — like Emerald Delibird description mentioning Mt. Everest:
It carries food bundled up in its tail. There was a famous explorer who managed to scale Mt. Everest thanks to a Delibird sharing its food.
So, we can’t trace back the moment the Pokémon World and our Earth started to be seen as separate from the developers, because this was a gradual process which removed references to the real world little by little — until they were almost reduced to none in Pokémon Black and White.
Anyhow, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were conceived as a turning point for the franchise: they weren’t directly linked to the previous titles like Gold and Silver were, and this was the perfect occasion to retcon a couple of poorly aged ideas. Indeed, a 2003 interview on Nintendo Dream magazine confirmed the Hoenn titles to be set in a different continuity than previous games.
Interviewer: “Johto’s name comes from the Shijo district of Kyoto, and means ‘condition,’ ‘castle,’ and ‘capital.’ They don’t appear in Ruby & Sapphire, but how are Kanto and Johto connected to Hoenn?”
Masuda: “I think it’s more fun to think of them as separate worlds. When we designed Hoenn, we also made a rocket launch pad, and we had ideas like ‘maybe that’s where Team Rocket came from.’ But we decided it was better not to spell things out concretely, especially as far as the media’s concerned.”
Glossing over for this article Team Rocket took its name from the fact it came in Kanto from multiversal-travelling spaceships, this piece of information is what marks the end of the Original Timeline in favour of the New Timeline.
Our journey in Hoenn allowed us to explore a new version of the Pokémon World, but Kanto and Johto still existed in the new continuity, as mentioned multiple times in the games’ script. That is why Generation I remakes came to fill the gaps.
Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen were launched in 2004 as the first remakes of the franchise. They mostly followed the backbone established in Red and Green, with some small changes now and then, and with the addition of a whole post-game quest in Sevii Islands. We don’t have a direct confirmation of the year the games are set in, but the 1969 for the moon landing was kept, so we can imagine our calendar is still commonly used. For ease, we’ll going to have the starting point in 1996 here too.
Note: At the end of this section, it will be argued the New Timeline should actually start in 2005 to be really consistent with what the games tell us — despite this wasn’t kept in the Mega Timeline, which resets everything to 1996. In this article we’ll continue to use this simplified chronology to not convolute things too much, but be aware this is just a baseless assumption, and it’s actually contradicted by some in-game evidences.
According to Matsumiya’s tweet, the Kanto games happen at the same time of the Hoenn ones — and with the original titles being out of the picture it’s clear he referred to the remakes. This is indeed suggested in the games by Celio’s Network Machine sub-quest, which completion allows the player to trade with the Hoenn region.
“I’ve managed to link up with TRAINERS in the HOENN region! Finally, the Network Machine is fully operational!”
In Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald trades with Kanto aren’t accessible until obtaining the National Pokédex, meaning until that point in time our Kanto main character hasn’t fulfilled Celio’s quest in Sevii Island yet. This is enough confirmation for the games to be actually contemporaneous, possibly even taking place in the same months, as both protagonists reach the post-game around the same time.
There are some interesting implications to this conclusion. The National Pokédex has its database already expanded to Deoxys in both iterations, despite our journey in Johto has yet to happen. This isn’t much of a problem per se, as with special events the Pokédex can be completed with Generation III games alone. We have to take in mind, however, in this timeline Elm has already given his contribution this far back, so our quest in Generation II remakes will be more similar to what happens in Black 2 and White 2: a study on Pokémon distribution over the region, more than first-time research on the fauna.
The Pokédex model for FireRed and LeafGreen is ポケモン図鑑HANDY909 [Pokédex HANDY909], and while we have no direct information of the Hoenn one, it’s interesting to note the Generation IV encyclopedia is addressed as ポケモン図鑑HANDY910is [Pokédex HANDY910is]. Given they’re just a unit away from each other, it is possible to infer the serial number refers to the last updated database more than the actual model, which could be instead specified by the “is” at the end. If that’s the case, we would have a “HANDY909is” for the Hoenn Pokédex, and a “HANDY910” for the Johto one — with the second characterized by having 493 classified species instead of 386.
A second consideration to make is that, as Hoenn and Kanto events take place around the same time, and Sidney and Steven are respectively Dark and Steel Type specialists, in the New Timeline the two Types will no longer be discovered “only recently” in our Johto’s adventure. This is consistent with Generation II remakes cutting all the dialogues referring to Steel Type as “new”, with Jasmine now only addressing its properties:
“I use the…clang! Steel type! …Do you know about the Steel type? They are very hard, cold, sharp, and really strong! Um… I’m not lying.”
As the dialogue of the Gym Leader once using Rock Types was kept, however, we can infer Dark and Steel Types were still unknown for a while to the scientific community. Their discovery just happens to be less recent in time in the new continuity.
Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl made their debut in 2006, with Pokémon Platinum joining in 2008. Of course, the new entries in the National Pokédex confirmed right away the new games were conceived as sequels, inheriting the legacy of our characters fulfilling the HANDY909. According to NPC dialogues, the new Pokédex was developed by Professor Rowan working with Oak during his four-years-long trip in Kanto:
“Professor Rowan invented a new Pokédex while working alongside a professor from the Kanto region!”
“Professor Rowan’s come back to town! It must be, like, four years since he left. They say he was doing his research somewhere else all this time.”
At the time Diamond and Pearl came out, their exact collocation in the timeline could’ve only guessed. The games did start mentioning a Red Gyarados, an obvious reference to the events of the Lake of Rage, and while Platinum cut the introduction, a man blocking Lake Valor now confirms to have actually managed to film the shiny creature:
Despite the exploration team’s best efforts, however, the rare, oddly colored Pokémon eluded detection. The rumored red GYARADOS failed to appear, even fleetingly, to the crestfallen team…
“Have you seen that TV program, “Search for the Red GYARADOS!”? You know, “The mysterious appearance of a raging Pokémon in a lake”? Yeah, that outstanding documentary! I filmed that!”
Platinum — “It was me who filmed that red GYARADOS at Lake of Rage.”
With the Red Gyarados still being around shortly before the start of the games, it’s clear Generation IV is meant to take place around the Johto events, something Matsumiya’s tweet also confirmed. The release of Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver in 2009 helped to set in stone the idea.
The National Pokédex for those games has the same database of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum — confirming Pokémon up to Arceus were classified at this point in time. An NPC in Goldenrod City confirms this information to be consistent in-universe:
“I wonder how many kinds of Pokémon there are in the world. A long time ago, Professor Oak said there were 150 different kinds… Since then, many new Pokémon have been discovered in different regions. There are almost 500 different kinds known now…”
Again we have the idea of an early period of Pokémon research more similar to the Original Timeline, when Oak only classified 150 species and Steel and Dark weren’t probably discovered yet. But this is referred as “a long time ago”, and it’s not a time-frame we’ll ever be able to see as FireRed and LeafGreen were already well past that point.
HeartGold and SoulSilver kept all the temporal coordinates from the originals, confirming they too happen three years after the events of Kanto — which means both the remakes and the Sinnoh’s titles are set in 1999 of our simplified calendar.
As prieviously seen, Professor Elm contribution happened earlier in this timeline — and while he’s still the man who discovered Pichu, this had to happen before FireRed and LeafGreen, as the whole Generation II is already in the National Pokédex by then.
A problem may be raised by the fact the dialogue in New Bark about Professor Elm having “discovered some new Pokémon” was kept in the remakes, despite his discoveries aren’t really new anymore. However, HeartGold and SoulSilver slightly modify their Regional Pokédex too, adding some creatures absent in the original: Tangrowth, Mamoswine, Lickilicky, Yanmega, and Ambipom are all in the Johto database, and with Elm research field focusing on evolution, it’s not a stretch to think he was the one discovering the evolutive methods for these Pokémon. If that’s the case, the HANDY910is wasn’t just Rowan and Oak’s doing.
HeartGold and SoulSilver also seem to be one of the few cases where we can draw a direct connection between versions. Steven Stone introduces himself as “The Champion from the Hoenn region.”, and while retaining their titles even after we beat them is standard procedure among the region’s strongest Trainers, he never goes by “Champion” in Emerald — where the role is taken by Wallace. The Embedded Tower further explore this peculiarity, with Groudon only showing up in SoulSilver and Kyogre being exclusive to HeartGold: although the Hoenn Super-Ancient Pokémon are hinted to not being unique, this may be the developers answer to the question “Where was the other Legendary in Ruby/Sapphire?”.
On the topic of what titles happened first, we know that when we get to Kanto Jasmine hasn’t yet given a try to the Pokémon Contests in Sinnoh:
Erika: “Hi, Jasmine. I heard Whitney from Goldenrod City said you were too plain and should look more fancy. Is that true?”
Jasmine: “Yes… I’m thinking maybe I should participate in this Contest in Sinnoh to try and be more vibrant…”
Erika: “How did it go?”
Jasmine: “I couldn’t bring myself to go to the Contest.”
Erika: “Oh, I see… Then why don’t you try putting on something especially gorgeous?”
Jasmine: “Ah, yes! Maybe I can bring myself to enter the Contest!”
This exchange also confirms Jasmine already went to Sinnoh, but couldn’t bring herself to participate — to which Erika encourages the friend to give it a try and “put on something especially gorgeous”. In other words, when our Johto main character is in Kanto the main events of the story of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum likely happened already, hence we can find the Olivine Gym Leader in Sunyshore City. Jasmine starts to show up in Contests only in Generation IV post-game, showing she accepted Erika’s advice and found the courage to get on stage. Following the same train of though, the Pokéathlon’s Supreme Cup in the Power Course must happen somewhen before our rematch against Maylene, as she can show up in the Johtonian competion with her Meditite still unevolved.
This, however, happens before we rematch Jasmine in Johto — as after defeating her a second time she will trade us her Steelix Rusty, which she uses in Sinnoh’s Contests. To sum this up, the general idea is that the Johto protagonist starts their journey roughly at the same time of the one in Sinnoh, as the former is in Kanto where the latter is near the end of the main quest. However, Sinnoh’s post-game obviously takes less time than exploring the whole Kanto region — hence why when we return to Johto Jasmine had all the time to go abroad and make her dream come true.
Of course this is a bit inconsistent in what we see in the games, as we can anytime fly from Kanto back to Johto and see Jasmine is still in her Gym, but this goes back to Masuda statement: looking too closely at characters who should be at two places at once would naturally bring some small inconsistences, and developers just didn’t think it was worthwhile programming an obscure event where a Gym Leader randomly disappears for some time without leading to any gameplay reward.
Post-Kanto HeartGold and SoulSilver is also confirmed to take place after the main Sinnoh’s quest, as during the Sinjoh Ruins event Cynthia is aware of the existence of Giratina and the Distortion World, something she was ignorant of until the last stretch of Platinum:
Platinum: “No…! I’m so sorry I took so long. I think I finally found the answer from studying the myths. When this world was made, Dialga and Palkia appeared. Apparently, there was one more Pokémon that appeared at the same time. A Pokémon with as much power as Dialga and Palkia… But also one whose name was never to be spoken — Giratina! It’s said to lurk in another world… A world on the opposite side of ours… That’s what the shadow was. It must have been Giratina.”
HeartGold and SoulSilver: “This is the pattern that represents Giratina, the ruler of the world that is on the opposite side of ours, the world of antimatter…”
Pokémon Black and Pokémon White were a peculiar point in the franchise’s history. The 2010 titles were meant to be a soft-reboot of the series, and as such cross-generational references were kept to a minimum, making hard to drawn a precise chronology.
From now on, Pokédex won’t have named models anymore — but we can be sure the games are set after all previous iterations since the database has now expanded up to 649 creatures. Indeed, transferring a Pokémon way from GBA iterations will display the line “Arrived at Lv. x after a long travel through time.”, suggesting many years may have passed since our last visit in the Pokémon World.
Through the games we can indeed find references to Team Rocket and Team Galactic having been defeated already, with Team Aqua and Magma only joining in the sequels:
“Team Galactic and Team Rocket drew too much attention to themselves. That’s why their plans were thwarted.”
“I entrust the Technical Machine in the Lock Capsule to a trustworthy Trainer in the Unova region. Don’t allow it to fall into the hands of villains like Team Rocket…”
“We were going to make more land, but we realized it would cause problems for Pokémon living in the sea… Oh! Don’t tell my girlfriend!”
“We tried to expand the ocean, but then there would be fewer Pokémon that live on land. That might make the Pokémon in the ocean sad… Oh! This is a secret from my darling boyfriend!”
For our reconstruction, one of the most important pieces of evidence is the former Team Rocket Grunt living in Icirrus City. The broken English he uses makes him instantly recognizable as the Grunt who tried to stole the Machine Part back in Generation II.
“Oh! Member of Team Rocket I was, long time gone! But Team Rocket bye-bye a go-go. I my region went home. Make new Team Rocket, I did! So myself I pledged! But now I married am. Now for Team Rocket there is no time by me. But happy family is big hooray!”
HeartGold and SoulSilver did add a piece of dialogue that was absent in the originals, with him saying: “I my country go home. Make Team Rocket I will. Good-bye! So long!”. And while in the localized version he seems to not being very fluent in English, in Japanese it’s the opposite: he clearly is a foreigner, as he tosses random English words in the speech, and coherently so Black and White confirmed his hometown to be an America-based setting.
The Grunt returned in his hometown and tried to re-establish Team Rocket there, but he eventually fell in love and started a family. We can talk to his son in his house, and he appears as a School Kid Trainer class. In original those are referred as 塾がえり [Coming Home from Cram School]. In Japan, Cram Schools are private schools offering supplementary classes in preparation for important tests — which tell us the Grunt’s child right now is likely practising for the Middle School entrance exam you take when you’re 11–12 years old. Even assuming the kid is playing in advance and he started attending Cram School a couple of years before 6th grade [which is a common practise in Japan], we have the confirmation Pokémon Black and White have to take place between 9 and 12 years after Generation IV.
As we’ll see in short, later games will further expand on this, confirming at least in the Mega Timeline the gap is strictly of twelve years. To be fair, we can’t know for sure if this is true for the New Timeline as well, but it is coherent with everything we know and does give a closure to an otherwise a bit obscure point in the chronology. Always keeping in mind this is a simplification, we can then conclude Pokémon Black and White are set around 2011.
With this information we can also say with some degree of certainty Caitlin, once Battle Frontier in Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver and now Elite Four in Unova, has aged of about twelve years. She does appear a lot older, and concept arts reveal she was 14 in Generation IV — which would make her 26 in Black and White.
Two years after the first Unova titles, Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2 were released to the public. Obviously, these are meant to be direct sequels, something the series didn’t try since Gold and Silver, and never to this scale. Listing all the changes the region went through in the gap between the titles would be pointless, as they’re evident through the entire playthrough. As multiple dialogues confirm, the sequels are set two years after the original story — 2013 in our calendar.
This book is about how much the Unova region has changed in two years. Each year, many people move to Unova, so the environment and cities change at a dizzying pace.
“Hi there! Who are you? Looking for Team Plasma? But Team Plasma disbanded two years ago!”
These are the first games to confirm without a doubt our journey to fulfill the Pokédex has not to be the first one ever in the region, as the goal of our field research isn’t just to confirm the data on the encyclopedia to be reliable catching specimen for the Professor, but also to check the Pokémon general distribution — which was also why our trip in Johto was needed despite the National Pokédex was completed three years before.
“Anyway, I just happen to have another Pokédex on me! It looks like Pokémon distribution has really changed compared to two years ago, so the more, the merrier!”
Black 2 and White 2 also introduced the Pokémon World Tournament, a facility where important Trainers from all around the world can challenge each other. While this again confirms the games are set long after the previous generations, most of the encounters here have to be taken with a grain of salt: it would be improbable no one changed a bit in appearance after twelve years — especially very young Gym Leaders like Tate and Liza. It’s no doubt the structure exists in the narrative and tournaments are hosted there, but the design for the returning characters is likely just to be considered an artistic liberty developers took to make the Gym Leaders and Champions immediately recognizable to the players.
But the PWT allows us to make another interesting observation, taking a look at Steven and Wallace introductions:
“Steven is a son of a wealthy family and a former Champion of Hoenn. It might ring a bell if I say his hobby is to collect Stones!”
“Wallace is the Champion of Hoenn. He was originally a Gym Leader. I wonder why he replaced Steven.”
While HeartGold and SoulSilver seem to be connected directly to Ruby and Sapphire, this generation decides to link itself to Emerald instead: Wallace is the current Champion, Steven left that role long ago.
A similar thing happens for Cynthia, as in Black and White she’ll directly reference the events of Platinum:
“You certainly bear a resemblance to that Trainer who faced Giratina… Oh, pardon me. I was just thinking out loud.”
Again, this is just relative to what we witness in the games, but the Multiverse allows infinite possibilities: a universe where the Embedded Tower isn’t inhabited by Groudon nor Kyogre may exist somewhere, as one where Steven took part in the PWT as the current Hoenn Champion. We just don’t get to see them!
On the actual dates
As anticipated, the dates used above are just a simplification. 1996 is the start of both the Original Timeline and, presumably, the Mega Timeline. Carrying the same convention for the New Timeline as well is just a way to avoid needless complexity.
In reality, we do have a more precise piece of evidence giving us an exact chronology of the games. In Platinum we can obtain the Member Card, an event item which triggers a special encounter with the Mythical Pokémon Darkrai. Its description reads:
A card needed for entering the inn in Canalave City. Oddly, the last date marked on it was 50 years ago.
Curiously, the Platinum artwork for the item shows us said date: 1958.12.1. Of course this is a reference to the card being distributed for the first time on 2008.12.1, but we can’t ignore the fact the information is contextualized through an in-game description.
With this new piece of evidence, we can conclude Generation IV and Generation II remakes take place in 2008, which means Generation III and Generation I remakes are set in 2005. The twelve years gap makes Black and White events occurring around 2020, and the sequels in 2022.
Mega Timeline
Pokémon X and Pokémon Y were a fresh new beginning for Game Freak. The transition between 2D and 3D brought new approaches to the worldbuilding and new challenges to face on the developers’ side. With the introduction of a new Type for the first time since Gold and Silver and a brand-new type of evolution, the will to change Pokémon forever was evident. And so, 2013 marked the former end of the New Timeline which players followed for more than ten years.
The nature of X and Y as a new continuity isn’t evident playing the games. Fairy Type got introduced as an energy only recently classified, the same way Steel and Dark Types were discussed in Generation II:
“Fairy type is a new Pokémon type that was just classified recently.”
On the contrary, Mega Evolution is never addressed as something discovered only in the last couple of years. Yes, it is a mysterious phenomenon whose functioning scientists don’t really have a clue about, but the games reveal us Sycamore started to study it in his youth — so the process was known even to commoners many years prior to our adventure:
“When he was younger, Professor Sycamore trained here to learn about Mega Evolution. But he decided he didn’t have what it takes and left fairly quickly.”
As the Fairy Type was never addressed in previous iterations, and new Pokémon were added to the database bringing the total to 721, the obvious conclusion would be X and Y to happen after all other games. Matsumiya’s tweet did suggest a contemporaneity with Black 2 and White 2, but the Pokédex model is definitely older in the Unova’s sequels, so we can infer that while happening around the same year, the Kalos titles would be definitely successive.
To be fair, an NPC in Lumiose City does refer to Team Plasma making news “a while back” in Unova — and given how much Black 2 and White 2 and X and Y have to be close in time, this probably refers to the incident of the original games. In other words, while Generation VI has to take place after Generation V sequels, they are still close enough for knowledge of the second Team Plasma attack to not having spread as far as Kalos.
Have you heard of Team Plasma? Apparently it was making news a while back in the Unova region…
This, if Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire didn’t happen. Launched in 2014, the Hoenn remakes threw a bomb on the understanding of the chronology at the time. The Multiverse was confirmed to still be a solid reality, and the Delta Episode revealed X and Y completely changed the timeline:
“My people know it. From generation to generation, we pass along the lore about the distortions in the world borne by the Mega Evolution mechanism. And about the existence of another world, which we have long observed to be just like this one and yet not the same… That’s right. A Hoenn region that’s almost exactly like this one we live in. Filled with Pokémon and people like us. A world where maybe the evolution of Pokémon took a slightly different path, where Mega Evolution is unknown… A world where that war 3,000 years ago…never happened. A world where the ultimate weapon was never even built.”
As Zinnia tells us, we were never be able to see Mega Evolution before Generation VI specifically because in the New Timeline this process doesn’t exist. While the English leaves this more vague in saying it is “unknown”, the original text sets in stone the Hoenn we knew belongs to a world where Mega Evolution was never born. The Ultimate Weapon being fired is a new fixed point in time, which was absent in all the games prior to X and Y.
メガシンカが 存在しない 世界……３０００年前にあの 戦争が 起こらず最終兵器も 作られなかったそんな世界の ホウエン……
A world where Mega Evolution does not exist… 3000 years ago, that war did not happen, and the Ultimate Weapon was not created. That’s the Hoenn of such a world…”
With this knowledge, we have to rethink everything we know of the timeline: information from previous games can no longer be considered valid. And so, the whole idea of Black 2 and White 2 having to happen a bit before X and Y is unsubstantiated: a version of Unova in which Mega Evolution exists has yet to be explored, and who can tell if the same Pokédex model and Fairy Type was present there already?
In the absence of other evidences, we can’t do anything more than put the rest in Matsumiya’s hands and accept the fact a Mega Evolution version of Unova’s sequels happened at the same time of Generation VI.
But here it comes the hard question: where do Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire fit in the new timeline? Are they set seventeen years before X and Y, like the original games compared to Black 2 and White 2? While this would make things much easier, that’s probably not the case. There are in fact evidences the remakes are closer in time to our journey in Kalos.
First of all, we know for sure X and Y have to be set after the Hoenn games, and that’s because Mr. Bonding origin story is explored in the latter, while the man is already bestowing O-Powers during the former.
“HEY! This…this power! This power is incredible! I feel tied to these old men with such strong bonds now! I feel like a totally different man!”
That being said, an NPC on Route 123 mentions the existence of Fairy Type, despite it was only recently discovered in X and Y. Of course, the Type being present in the game-code could be disregarded as ludo-narrative dissonance [they won’t just remove a mechanic to be consistent with the narrative], but characters actively mentioning it shows people in Hoenn are well aware of the new category:
“Hey, hey! Fairy types are sure-enough cute, but they can be strong, too! I bet you already knew that, eh? There’s no Fairy-type Gym in Hoenn, eh? Maybe I’ll sure-enough go ahead and make one! Before Miss Valerie even gets here!”
Fairy Type being a “recent” classification doesn’t give us precise coordinates on its discovery: could be months, could be a couple of years. But almost two decades sounds implausible enough to disregard the idea all the Hoenn iterations line up with each other across the timelines.
Indeed, while transferring Pokémon from previous generations, the line “Seems to have traveled across both space and time to reach you from [region]” will show up: this is also true for creatures that travels from the original Hoenn to the new one, strongly suggesting those Pokémon also move through time. This is further implied by the reward we can receive from a Game Freak developer in Cove Lily Motel after showing him a Pokémon from Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald: the man will recognize us with a Time Traveler Award.
There are indeed many dialogues referencing the old Hoenn, like seen in the GBA titles. The idea seems to be Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are set later in time, and some of the old features aren’t present anymore because years have passed. For example, we have a Bug Catcher in Rustboro City mentioning Pokémon Centers previous layout about 10 years ago:
“I heard that Pokémon Centers had two stories up until around 10 years ago! And they used to have a special area called a “Pokémon Cable Club”!”
A Battle Girl confirms us Dewford Gym was once covered in the dark, a reference to its appearance in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald:
“A long time ago at Dewford Gym, it was always dark inside. We trained our minds by practicing in the dark!”
An old man in Fallabor Town’s Contest Hall references the old machine to make Pokéblocks, which was used in the region “long ago”:
“I just love making Pokéblocks! In the old days it used to take four of us to make a Pokéblock with this machine. A machine that was used to mix Berries in this region long ago.”
Mt. Pyre was also once filled with holes, suggesting the original level design existed in this timeline too and was only later renovated:
“This used to be a desolate place. The ground had holes here and there, and I used to fall in!”
Norman gives us the final piece of evidence we need in order to confirm the general idea: according to him, the last time he saw an Eon Ticket was 12 years ago [although it’s 11 in the English version, the Japanese adds a unit to our reconstruction]. Of course, this doesn’t mean our adventures in Hoenn happened two times in the same universe in a weird, convoluted cycle: this is a reference to the first distribution of the Ticket — and while it doesn’t reveal in what circumstances Norman saw it for the first time in this chronology, it is useful to have an idea how much developers perceive the remakes distant from the originals.
“…むぅ? おまえが持っているのは むげんのチケットか１２年ぶり だな その チケットを みるのは”
“…Hmm? Is it the Infinity Ticket you have? It’s been 12 years since I’ve seen that ticket.”
A 12-years-shift between the Generation III titles and their remakes would place Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire three years before the Mega versions of Black and White, and five before X and Y. While the Fairy Type issue is not entirely resolved, the concept being around the scientific community for five years before being officialised seems at least more plausible than the idea still coming as “new” after seventeen years. A similar issue exists for Mega Evolution, as Sycamore affirms the process has been observed solely in Kalos, while we see Hoenn had a good understanding of it a good while prior to the games:
“It’s only a hypothesis, but I think the bond between Pokémon and Trainer is the key to this new Evolution. But what is this bond, exactly? And why are there examples of Mega Evolution only in the Kalos region? There’s still so much we don’t know…”
Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire being close to the Unova titles is indeed hinted by some in-game dialogues, and the remakes are confirmed to take place before them as both the Royal Unova and Fennel C-Gear aren’t finalized yet:
“The Royal Unova” — “A model of the sunset cruiser currently being built in the Unova region. It’s scheduled to be complete in — years.” The number is too faint to be read.
“I’m trying to develop a device that visually reproduces the dreams of Pokémon… And I’ve heard that my rival, who lives far away, is doing the same research! I can’t lose this race.”
If dialogues from previous iterations are kept in hypothetical Mega versions of Black and White, we also know the Genesect project was shut down by N when he was already a monarch, and the Mythical Pokémon Drives being on the black market in Hoenn demonstrates the coronation of the Plasma King didn’t happen more than three years before the Unova main games — something coherently shown in the games’ introduction.
“My lord N apparently rejected my research… But my research is necessary for Team Plasma to reach its goal… The strongest Pokémon…”
“Douse Drive… Shock Drive… Burn Drive… and Chill Drive! Just between you and me, these are some really rare items. They come from the Unova region through some shady market, you know?”
This causes yet another issue, as the Pokédex model in the remakes is the same of X and Y, having all Pokémon data up to Volcanion. This can however be partially explained if we remember our journey through the region isn’t necessarily the first, and the species may have already been classified by our predecessors.
We know this to be the case for Kalos, as Dexio was explicitly a Pokédex holder two years before the games:
“I’m Dexio. Two years ago, Professor Sycamore entrusted me with a Pokédex. You could call me a Pokémon-voyage veteran.”
For timeline consistency, Professor Sycamore assistant can’t be the first to have collected all the Generation VI data either, as we’re searching for someone who travelled across the region more than five years ago. Given his past as a Pokémon Trainer, and having been at least in Shalour City and Couriway Town in his youth, Sycamore himself seems a good candidate.
So, the Pokédex model may have been developed by the Professor under Rowan supervision — we know he was thought by the Sinnohan scholar thanks to an NPC in his laboratory. And if he was the one collecting data across Kalos, then he may have also be the one to firstly discover Flabébé, which the official site also describes as newly discovered.
“The professor is researching Evolution and change. I heard that he learned a lot from Prof. Rowan in Sinnoh when he was young.”
Flabébé: Another newly discovered Fairy-type Pokémon, Flabébé clings to a flower early on, and then cares for it for its entire life.
Flabébé being a “newly discovered Pokémon” is helpful to better contextualize the statement Fairy Type was “classified recently”: it may have been the Single Bloom Pokémon to have ignited the interest for a possible new category, with Fairy being officially recognized with the most recent Pokédex update roughly five years prior X and Y.
For Generation V, we have to make an analogous argument: if Pokémon from Victini to Genesect were already in the database in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it means our character will not be the first to travel all around Unova to complete its pages. This was indeed hinted already in Pokémon Black and White, as Aurea claims she “heard” Victini was given the number 000 for special reasons:
“In the Unova Pokédex, Victini was assigned a special number: zero. I’ve heard this special number was assigned in the hope that Victini’s power to bring victory would be shared with the Trainer who travels with this Pokédex.”
This confirms the Pokédex model she delivers to us wasn’t developed by her, leaving her father as the only other viable option. Before Kalos Pokédex was fulfilled [but as we’ll see, after the events in Sinnoh] Professor Cedric had to send on a journey some Trainers to verify his research. We don’t know who they were, but Skyla is a good candidate. According to an interview with developers, the Gym Leader was originally conceived to be a “caring old sister” type of character, which would have been ideal for our spiritual predecessor:
“Initially, we were told to design Skyla as a caring older sister, and she would do things like carry luggage around the airport, pilot a cargo plane, and rally all the men. Her early designs gave her this wild kind of facial expression, but we thought maybe the idea of a caring older sibling character had kind of been done already. I said I’d really prefer we make her into your standard cute young girl, which resulted in the design we have now.”
Skyla seems also to be really familiar with Professor Cedric, we meet them both for the first time talking to each other in Mistralton City, and her jokes about the old man’s attitude could point out to their former student-teacher dynamic:
“Sheesh! It’s hard to believe a happy-go-lucky guy like that could be a world-renowned Pokémon professor.”
While this whole model works in theory, it should be underlined it’s unclear if developers thought the Pokédex issue in such details. While the New Timeline was able to be strongly consistent in that regard, Hoenn remakes’ approach seems far more superficial — the notion of Mega Evolution being exclusive to Kalos will always remain an unaddressed plot hole. And if future Unova’s iterations will feature a version of Pokédex not updated up to Volcanion, we’ll be forced to add another sin to the titles’ resume. Similarly, future X and Y remakes could get rid of the notion of Fairy as a newly discovered Type similarly to HeartGold and SoulSilver, taking the original’s place in the canon and relegating them to their own, poorly-connected, continuity. Only time will tell.
With Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire out of the picture, the rest of the timeline is far easier to put together. Generation VII was inaugurated in 2016 with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, with two more versions taking place in parallel universes following the next year by the name of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon.
The placement of the new games in the timeline is easily said looking at official concept art of Grimsley: the Unovan Elite Four latest appearance before Alola was in Black 2 and White 2, with the sketches being labeled with “2 years later”, confirming a two years time jump between X and Y and (Ultra) Sun and (Ultra) Moon.
Even more interesting is the presence of familiar faces in the Battle Tree. Out of all the returning characters, two peak our attention: the first being Wally. The kid was confirmed to be 10 years old in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire by the Hoenn News Network:
“This remarkable 10-year-old Trainer is originally from Petalburg City and is known to his friends and family as Wally.”
With our current collocation of Hoenn remakes in the timeline, the Trainer is about 17 years old when we encounter him in Alola. Although his character design didn’t change much, signs of the time passing can be seen looking closely at the two models in battle. And while this age gap is a bit too wide for this to be really consistent, this is surely a more satisfying conclusion then it would be with placing Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire at the same time of the original Hoenn games — which would make Wally 29 by the time of (Ultra) Sun and (Ultra) Moon.
Red and Blue also returned, and in this case they’re clearly older than they used to be. The shirt on the Kanto protagonist features a 96, an evident reference to the year his journey started. We can admittedly not be sure if our calendar is still used in this timeline, but as the number is the only real hint we have we will conventionally place the start of Red and Blue adventures in 1996.
We currently don’t have Kanto games set in the Mega Timeline, but the animated series comes at our rescue with Pokémon Origins. This animated short series is a faithful adaptation of the first titles of the franchise, following Red conquering Badges and unravelling the evil schemes of Team Rocket all around the region. Only, the last episode reveals this is actually set in a world where Mega Evolution exists, with Red’s Charizard triggering the transformation in order to defeat Mewtwo. Of course, this is just meant to be a general representation of this version of the story, and nothing is really set in stone regarding Red team or particular battles in the infinite possibilities of the Multiverse.
In Origins, Red manages to catch all 150 Pokémon classified by Oak — confirming that, contrary to the New Timeline, here Johto and Hoenn Pokémon aren’t listed in the database yet — and this naturally includes Porygon. Entries for the Virtual Pokémon in Generation VII confirm the creature was artificially made 20 years prior to (Ultra) Sun and (Ultra) Moon — which is the maximum Origins and Generation VII can be apart.
It was built 20 years ago by scientists who dreamed of exploring space. Their dreams have yet to come true.
Out of simplicity, we are going to assume the notion Porygon was created a year prior Generation I still holds up to these days. It’s admittedly a baseless conclusion, but it makes sense a year at least had to pass between the Pokémon first birth and its smuggling at the Game Corner, while more seems a bit unplausible in the moment even Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee! descriptions talk of people being enthusiast about the possibility the Pokémon may travel to space — which is the purpose it was created in the first place.
Three years after Origins, we can imagine Mega Evolution games set in Johto happened, in parallel with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl. The Generation IV remakes surely belong to our third timeline, as in Canalave Library we now have a book titled “The Sea’s Legend” which directly ties with Legends: Arceus Manaphy sub-quest [and as we’ll see, the game is confirmed to be set in the Mega Timeline].
On this particular topic, we have not to fall under the assumption games featuring no Mega Evolution have to fall outside the continuity: as Sycamore puts it, the process is so rare he thought it was exclusive to Kalos — and among other regions only Hoenn has a history with it. In this version of Sinnoh, the Ultimate Weapon was still fired 3000 years ago: it just didn’t affect the whole world with its radiation.
The National Pokédex is now completed up to Arceus, meaning someone also filled the Hoenn gap in the meantime — but as all Generation III Pokémon can be obtained in the Sinnoh remakes, this could just be our main character in a similar way the Johto gap was filled in the New Timeline.
We also have to remember Fairy Type was no yet discovered at this point in time, so we have to disregard its presence as ludo-narrative dissonance. The Type is not mentioned in any in-game dialogue outside those strictly related to gameplay, like the guy at the entrance of Veilstone Gym explaining us the weaknesses of the Fighting Type, so it doesn’t really cause the same problem of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
Although the Member Card is present in these titles too, no official artwork has been released for it and the in-game sprite doesn’t allow us to read its date. We have then no problem in placing them in 1999.
As we’ve explored in detail already, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire follow in 2008, and a Mega Evolution version of Black and White in 2011. Their hypothetical sequels are contemporary to X and Y in 2013, which leaves us with (Ultra) Sun and (Ultra) Moon in 2015.
Past this point, things start to get foggier. Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield have to be placed after Generation VII due to the Pokédex being expanded, but there’s a severe lack of references to previous titles that makes us impossible to say exactly when they take place. All we know is enough time passed for Type: Null secret data to be stolen, and for the Synthetic Pokémon to be recreated in Galar.
Rumor has it that the theft of top-secret research notes led to a new instance of this Pokémon being created in the Galar region.
Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are the current end of the road, not only for the usual Pokédex update, but also because Sonia’s book on Galar recent history has been published and can be read at the Academy:
Galar: A History
“We made for the town of Stow-on-Side, which sits tucked away in the mountains, to study an ancient mural painted upon a wall of rock. But our plans — and the mural itself — were shattered by an attack from a Copperajah!”
“Yet behind the mural, what should we find but a pair of Pokémon statues — one bearing a sword, the other a shield! These statues, older than any artifact we’d yet discovered, called into question everything we knew about the legendary hero.”
Once again we don’t have a specific amout of years passing between the games, but Mimikyu Violet Pokédex entry confirms it was officially recognized as a Pokémon only “recently”, meaning the gap between Alola and Paldea games is not too wide:
Mimikyu was only recently identified as a Pokémon. Previously, people thought it was just a ghost wearing a cloth.
Scarlet and Violet are confirmed to take place in a world where Mega Evolution exists thanks to Roaring Moon entry referencing its similarities with Mega Salamence:
“According to an article in a dubious magazine, this Pokémon has some connection to a phenomenon that occurs in a certain region.”
This once again confirms a game doesn’t need to feature Mega Evolution as a mechanic to fit in the continuity, and settles both Sword and Shield and Pokémon Legends: Arceus as part of the same timeline. Generation IX does, in fact, reference the Hisuian title with Laventon and Hisuian Poké Ball in the whiteboard during history classes.
On the temporal coordinates of this last game, the setting is heavily based on the post-Meiji Restoration colonization of Hokkaido — with the region having its name changed from Ezochi in 1869. Both this, the state of technology, and some in-game dialogues make the time-frame for the game plausible to be around 150 years ago, but we’re not going to investigate the matter any longer in this article— the title deserves its own series of analysis.
Let’s Go Timeline
Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon Let’s Go, Eevee! represented a brief interlude between the main games, trying to ride on the wave of Pokémon GO success, and appealing both to a younger audience and the nostalgic part of the community that desired to step on Kanto’s ground once more.
Once again, we have faithful remakes of the original Generation I iterations, but this time more liberties were taken — starting from the fact the protagonists were conceived as original characters, while Red, Green, and Blue became their own separate individuals. The original dialogue that mentioned moon landing was also modified, and there’s now no trace of 1969 nor the use of our calendar ever in the games.
The titles feature Mega Evolution, to which it would be easy to assume they belong to the homonymous timeline. This, however, is made completely impossible by the presence of Mina. Official concept arts reveal the Alolan girl to be around 13–15 years old when we encounter her in Kanto, which would make her 32–34 in (Ultra) Sun and (Ultra) Moon.
This, however, isn’t consistent with what Mallow reveals about Trail Captains having to retire at the age of 20:
“I mean, we have to move on from being captains when we turn 20 anyway.”
Any attempt to push forward the Kanto iterations of the Mega Timeline by years like we did with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire would hardly work. Blue comments how the Pokédex is a new invention even in Let’s Go, and the database is only updated up the first generation, with the addition of Meltan and Melmetan. The classification of these Mythical Pokémon at this point in the timeline, with the games lacking a National Pokédex, further divides the two continuities — in the Mega Timeline they were only added after Zeraora. Even assuming Mina is 13 in Kanto and 19 in Alola, a six years gap would emerge nonetheless, putting the Let’s Go games one year after Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire — whose Pokédex’s list is far longer than Oak’s model.
“That’s a Pokédex, right? So Gramps finally went and made one! He used to make me just scribble on a map with a pencil about where I encountered Pokémon… You’d better do a good job helping him out!”
And so, Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Eevee! must to be set in a different continuity, one in which the Ultimate Weapon was indeed fired causing Mega Evolution to appear, but that it’s divergent enough to be considered by its own. And maybe we will return here, if similar games will be ever produced.