Pokémon TCG Pocket will get limited trading in 2025, but new booster packs this year

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket players will get to trade “certain cards” come 2025, the Pokémon TCG Pocket operations team announced Wednesday. After launching in late October, Pokémon TCG Pocket has been a wild hit: The game has reportedly made more than $12 million across more than 10 million downloads. Opening booster packs, collecting cards, and then battling with them has been the big draw since the game’s release date, but trading has always been on the docket. Now, players know when to expect it — in January. But the Pokémon TCG Pocket operations team isn’t going to open the trading flood gates, instead opting to keep the functionality limited to “certain cards.”

“We are planning to gradually expand the selection of cards that are able to be traded,” the operations team wrote.

The addition of trading is highly anticipated, but it could fundamentally change the game, something that The Pokémon Company acknowledged at a press event held in November. “We know introducing trading into a game all about collection is going to have significant implications,” a Pokémon Company representative said at the preview event. “We want to see how people are playing the game and what the best way we could do this in a way that makes sense for TCG Pocket would be.”

While trading is still a few months out, though, the Pokémon TCG Pocket team did say Wednesday that it plans to add new booster packs “by the end of the year,” but did not specify a date. Other “new features” are in development, too, which the company plans to announce more in the future.