Pokémon Legends: Z-A Will Feature Ranked Battles & Four-Player PvP Mode

Pokémon Legends: Z-A will feature online ranked battles and a four-player PvP mode, it has been revealed at the Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim

Due to be released on October 16, Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the next big release for the franchise heading into a huge year in 2026, where Pokémon celebrates a 30th anniversary and is widely expected to release the tenth generation of Pokémon.

Legends: Z-A follows on from the success of 2021’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which featured open-world catching mechanics for the first time, but big steps forward are being taken in the latest entry to the series with online support.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A Features Online Support

An image of the online menu in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.

Big features. Image via The Pokemon Company

One of the biggest disappointments with Legends: Arceus was the lack of online features, with no battling, trading, or Mystery Gift system. That all changes in Legends: Z-A, however, which will feature them all.

Ranked battles will provide competitive action for trainers around the world, with private matches also being available, while the trading mechanics suggest that trade evolutions will return—having been replaced by single-use items in Legends: Arceus.

Another piece of big news revealed at Anaheim was a four-player PvP mode, where trainers will compete within a time limit to secure the most knock-outs, with Mega Evolution confirmed to be available in the mode.

The four-player mode follows on from the four-player co-op introduced in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, though that was restricted to open-world exploration and did not include battle features. Instead, battles remained in the same one-vs-one format we’ve become accustomed to.

Introducing a four-player PvP mode in Legends: Z-A could mean big things for the tenth generation of the game, given Scarlet & Violet took a lot of the mechanics from Legends: Arceus and introduced them to the mainline games—including open-world catching and exploration.

Are you excited by the confirmation of online modes featuring in Pokémon Legends: Z-A?