How to Transfer Pokémon from Legends: Arceus to Pokémon Home

After a fairly long wait, players finally have the ability to transfer Pokémon from Legends Arceus to Pokémon Home.

After a hefty update to Pokemon Legends Arceus, we are now free to add our Hisuian catches to our personal databanks. Plus, some can be used in the likes of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, too. Or, you can bring previous favourites into Legends Arceus to help with those pesky legendary battles. You get some goodies for transferring your Mons as well - you’ll get the three starters as a reward when you first connect. A Rowlett, Cyndaquill and Oshawott with maximum effort values will be gifted to you. This 2.0.0 version of Pokémon Home has expanded its Pokedex to include the Hisui region now as well

Now that Home has updated, you can safely swap your Pokemon to and from Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, too. While we’re on the Legends Arceus hype, here’s our guide to getting Arceus itself, and the complete Hisui Pokedex.

How to link Pokémon Home to Legends Arceus

There is nothing you need to do to actually link the two games, other than have Pokémon Home available on your Nintendo Switch console. It will automatically detect which Pokémon games you have based on save data.

How to transfer Pokémon from Legends Arceus to Pokémon Home

Actually transferring Pokémon to and from Home is really easy. The app has, thankfully, streamlined the process since the Bank days of old.

Simply open Pokémon Home on your Nintendo Switch, and log in. Once you’re on the home screen, click the Pokémon button in the top right, and then choose Legends Arceus from the menu of eligible games. From here, select and drag any Pokemon you want to move between games or into your bank. Easy!

Any Pokémon that come into Legends Arceus will arrive in a ‘Strange Ball’. This is because most of the balls seen in previous Pokémon games were not invented in the Hisuian era, given that it is so far in the past.

click to enlarge

Can you transfer Hisuian Pokémon?

The answer to this is a yes and no situation. You can't transfer Hisuian native Pokemon or regional forms to games predating Legends Arceus, but it does look like we can move them into the upcoming Scarlet and Violet.

What do the symbols in Pokémon Home mean?

You might notice that there are some symbols on Pokémons sprites in Home. These mean a few different things:

• Yellow triangle with an exclamation point
  • The Pokémon has a move that does not exist in the game you’re moving it to, so it will be essentially removed.
• Red stop sign
  • The red circle with a line through it means that this Pokemon cannot be moved to the game you chose.
• Blue question mark
  • This means once you transfer the critter to your chosen game, it cannot be transferred back to where it came. The options to transfer it will be less than before.