Story & plot

The game opens with a Ditto waking in the Withered Wasteland. Drawing on a memory of its former Trainer, it takes on a human shape and begins exploring.

It meets a Tangrowth living alone in the ruins — soon nicknamed Professor Tangrowth. According to him, all the humans and other Pokémon disappeared long ago, and he has no idea where they went.

Ditto finds a Pokédex among the Professor’s belongings and agrees to start restoring Pokémon habitats. As more Pokémon arrive, Tangrowth’s hopes that the humans may also return begin to rise.

Ditto finds an Onix trapped in a cave with rock too tough to break through. Tangrowth suggests rain could soften it — but it hasn’t rained here in years.

To summon rain, Ditto tracks down a Slowpoke, whose yawns are said to have weather-changing power. Its first yawn produces only a brief shower, but that’s enough to stir Kyogre from the ocean.

With Kyogre’s help, a proper rainstorm soaks the area, Onix is freed, and Ditto’s Trainer rank rises high enough to open the gates to two new biomes.

Bleak Beach is covered by thick permanent clouds. Beyond restoring habitats, Ditto’s main task here is lighting the place up.

It discovers a Snorlax so long-asleep that moss has grown over its body and a flower has bloomed on its head — Mosslax. Ditto also meets a pale, slightly-droopy Pikachu called Peakychu. Peakychu can’t generate electricity, but she can still absorb and redirect it.

After Ditto repairs enough electric sources to power a generator for Peakychu, she lights the sky brightly enough to draw out Raikou. Raikou blows away the clouds, and Mosslax finally wakes.

Rocky Ridges is buried under volcanic ash — a former mining town. Ditto meets Chef Dente, a Greedent whose recipes power up its moves, and a stereo-possessing Rotom called DJ Rotom.

DJ Rotom suggests the best way to bring this place back to life is with a giant party. Ditto raises the Mood metric, prepares the party area, and invites friends.

The party is loud enough to wake Volcanion inside the nearby volcano. Volcanion doesn’t attend in person, but caps the night off with a dazzling firework display. With both Raikou and Volcanion befriended, Ditto’s Trainer rank rises once more.

The Sparkling Skylands are a cluster of floating islands held aloft by mysterious stones. Amongst the human ruins, Ditto meets Tinkmaster — a Tinkaton with a set of engineer’s goggles and outsized hammer.

At Tinkmaster’s suggestion, Ditto agrees to help restore a huge human-built structure. Resources are pulled in from every other biome; friends from across the game pitch in.

When the building is complete, Mewtwo appears on its roof. Mewtwo tells Ditto about another suspicious-looking building — one in a place that used to be called Fuchsia, which is now the Withered Wasteland.

Back in the Wasteland, Ditto finds a peculiar building. A voice from inside invites it to take the Team Initiation Challenge to join Team R.

The challenge has eight parts. Each requires Ditto to insert specific resources or items; each completion earns a replica Badge. For the final part, Ditto must insert a precious photograph it has taken along the way.

When the last part is complete, the building is revealed to be a rocket. It launches into deep space with its cargo and is eventually found by a human space station — implied to be the home of Ditto’s former Trainer.

Back on the planet, Professor Tangrowth encourages Ditto to keep building, still hopeful that the humans will someday return.

What Ditto and Tangrowth never learn — but the player pieces together through the Human Records scattered across the world — is the full story.

Humanity evacuated the planet to space after a cascade of natural disasters brought on a global famine. It wasn’t possible to bring every Pokémon along, so the world’s Pokémon were placed inside a specially modified PC Box to keep them safe during humanity’s absence.

The PC system was programmed with a failsafe tied to an environmental scanner: when it detected stable habitats again, it would begin automatically releasing the Pokémon. The decision was made that it would be more humane to let the Pokémon inherit the post-human world than to keep them stored indefinitely, waiting for a return that could take decades.