The holiday season comes to Pokémon Masters EX this week, with a present of new content for players. A brand new Holiday-themed story event, Focus on the Shining Shot!, makes its debut today alongside Seasonal Scouts featuring Viola in a fresh seasonal outfit together with her new sync partner Vivillon.

As first announced back in October, the Rocket's Revenge marathon from TheSpeedGamers will start this week on Friday December 15th, running through to Monday December 18th. The event, which is raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, will be streamed live on TheSpeedGamers Twitch Channel. This year's Pokémon marathon will feature Nuzlocke runs of unspecified Pokémon games ranging from the first generation to third generation. While the marathon will implicitly be a group undertaking, two randomly selected among the TSG team will be designated as Rocket members, whose goal will be to ensure the runs fail without their fellow players or viewers discovering them. Viewers will be able to vote to find the saboteurs, for a chance to win various Pokémon-themed prizes.

I’m quite a bit divided over this week's episode of Pokémon Horizons, in all honesty. While there are several good aspects of this episode that I liked, there are a number of things that are nagging at me a lot. So sit down, relax, and let me explain what's got me so conflicted with this episode.

The holiday season is once again upon us, and it's past time that we here at Bulbagarden got the ball rolling with our annual Holiday Contests! This year, we have a total of three separate contests running over the holiday period, with over $2,250 USD worth of prizes up for grabs.

Pokémon Masters EX is today debuting the second of its Ultimate Battle challenges with the addition of Ultimate Battle: Thorton's Freezing Frost. Also dropping in-game today are the game's latest Legendary Gauntlet, along with a pair of new scouts.

The Pokémon Company has announced that Super Music Collections for Pokémon Sword and Shield + Expansion Pass, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and Pokémon Sword and Shield + The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero will each be released in Japan on Pokémon Day on February 27th, 2024. Pre-orders are now open on the Pokémon Center ONLINE website in Japan, while stocks last, and are limited to a maximum of 2 items per person.

The developers of Pokémon Sleep have given players a list of features and issues that are currently receiving development attention. This list highlights several of quality of life improvements that players can expect to see coming in an update planned for release later this month, prior to the start of the Holiday 2023 event that was announced earlier this week. Pokémon Sleep are also distributing a large gift bundle of handy in-game items to all currently registered players.

Project VOLTAGE, the special art and music collaboration project between Pokémon and the popular Volcaloid character Hatsune Miku, will soon be releasing the sixth of 18 music videos, with Kimi to Sora wo Tobu (きみとそらをとぶ) featuring Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka, from Vocaloid producer Kasamura Tota (傘村トータ), also known as machiomiii. The song's title translates in English as Flying in the air with you. The music video for the song will premiere this Friday, December 8th, at 6:30pm (JST) / 9:30am (UTC) / 1:30am (PST).

The final trailer for The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, the paid DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, has been released ahead of the release of Part 2, The Indigo Disk next week on Thursday, December 14th. This new trailer reveals a range of new features in the DLC, including for the first time in a main series title the ability to control your Pokémon directly. Additional details on these features, along with special distributions being made to celebrate the release were also given in a simultaneous update made to the official Scarlet & Violet website.

The Pokémon of Myth from the Sinnoh region, Dialga and Palkia, are making their first appearance in a 5-star Tera Raid Battle event in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet starting December 7th, at 4:00pm (PST) / December 8th at Midnight (UTC), and running through until December 21st at 3:59pm (PST) / 11:59pm (UTC).

Limited-time distributions of Darkrai and a Shiny Lucario were announced for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet today alongside the final trailer for The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 2: The Indigo Disk, which aired today across the various language Official Pokémon YouTube channels. Darkrai's distribution will be available until December 21st, at 11:59pm (UTC), while Lucario will be available until January 3rd, 2024, at 11:59pm (UTC).

Pokémon Sleep will be marking the holiday season later this month with the Holiday 2023 — Double Dream Shard Research event, running in-game for the week leading up to Christmas. As the name suggests, this event will give Researchers double the regular amount of Dream Shards through sleep research, as well as offering increased chances of meeting Shiny Pokémon. The game will also be receiving a small update ahead of this event, with a significant increase planned for the effect of Dream Shard Magnet S skill.

The Bulbapedia encyclopedia is always growing here at Bulbagarden! All sorts of edits and contributions sprout up every single day thanks to Pokémon enthusiasts from all around the world! Let's take a closer look at our editors' best contributions that have taken root during November 2023.

No Glitches Allowed (NoGA) will be hosting their annual everything-goes winter event from December 6th to December 10th. Pokémon Yellow and a multiworld randomizer Pokémon Red will both feature in the marathon, which can be watched from the group's Twitch channel. The event will be raising money for GO Rescue Pet Adoption Center, a no-kill dog shelter in Norfolk, Virginia.

More Alola region content returns to Pokémon Masters EX, with a re-run of the People Protecting Pokémon Villain Event, which originally ran as part of the Alola Chapter of the Villain Arc earlier this year. This event will run through to December 17th, at 9:59pm (PST).

Battle Pass 20 has arrived in Pokémon UNITE, bringing new holowear for Sableye and Mewtwo, along with other assorted rewards for players. The Version 1.13.1.2 patch has also dropped this week, enabling the Holiday events that were announced previously as well as bringing balancing changes to a wide selection of Pokémon.

Niantic has released details on the upcoming Catch Mastery: Ice event in Pokémon GO, that was first announced last week alongside the release of information on the Timeless Travels season. The event will be held in-game this Saturday, December 9th, from 10:00am to 8:00pm local time.

The official Pokémon Taiwanese website has announced that a special Taipei's Pikachu promotional card for the Pokémon Trading Card Game will be distributed this month, to commemorate the opening of Pokémon Center TAIPEI on December 8th.

After launching last month for streaming and download in both Japanese and English across a wide variety of music platforms, the music video for the English version of Biri-Biri by YOASOBI is now finally available from YOASOBI's official YouTube Channel. The song is directly inspired by After the Rain With You (Japanese: きみと雨上がりを Kimi to Ameagari o), the original short novel based on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet that was released as a free-to-read web novel in Japan on November 10th.

The Adamant Time event, featuring Pokémon from the Kanto region, will be running in Pokémon GO next week from Monday December 11th at 10:00am local time, through to Friday December 15th at 8:00pm local time.