Here's the thing about Pokopia: it's a game that basically invites you to build whatever you want. Give players that kind of creative freedom in a post-apocalyptic monster world, and you'd better believe they're going to get clever with it.
A bunch of Pokopia players have started recreating some of the most iconic buildings from the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. We're talking the Pelipper-shaped post office, Sharpedo Bluff, all those unmistakable creature-formed landmarks that only exist in the dungeon-crawler world. And there's a reason fans are connecting the dots between these two very different games.
Pokopia takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has disappeared, and one prevailing fan theory suggests Pokopia could be a prequel to the Mystery Dungeon series, which also casts the player as a Pokémon in a humanless world. Whether that holds up story-wise is another question entirely, but the theory has already sparked some creative energy among the fan community. Players are essentially building out the world they reckon Mystery Dungeon inhabits, preparing their islands for what could be the series' future.
The mystery here is a familiar one to longtime fans of the Mystery Dungeon franchise. Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, the most recent entry in the series, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2015. Since then, nothing. In 2020, The Pokémon Company released a remake of the original games called Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX on Nintendo Switch, but that's a remaster of old material, not new ground.
For a franchise that has sold over 17.26 million copies across all installments, that's a pretty long drought. And it's strange timing, really. Roguelikes have exploded in popularity over the past decade. Hades, Slay the Spire, Balatro – people love the procedurally generated dungeon crawl. You'd think Nintendo and The Pokémon Company would be keen to tap into that.
But instead, here we are watching players use Pokopia's building tools to basically design the world they wish Mystery Dungeon would come back to explore. The original Mystery Dungeon series has some distinct, Pokémon-shaped structures that don't appear in the other Pokémon games, which makes them perfect inspiration for Pokopia's sandbox-style creation system. It's the kind of thing that happens when a beloved franchise goes quiet long enough – the fans will build your dream game themselves.
Whether this fan creativity eventually prompts an actual new Mystery Dungeon game, who knows. But if it does, at least The Pokémon Company knows exactly where to look for design inspiration.