Detective Pikachu Returns (Nintendo Switch)

Titles	Detective Pikachu Returns 帰ってきた 名探偵ピカチュウ (Kaettekita Meitantei Pikachū)
Platform	Nintendo Switch (game card and Nintendo eShop download)
Developer	Creatures Inc.
Publisher	Nintendo (The Pokémon Company in Japan)
Directors	Katsuyoshi Irie (director) · Yasunori Yanagisawa (creative director)
Producers	Masamichi Anazawa (producer) · Hiroyuki Jinnai and Shinya Takahashi (general producers)
Music	Takuto Kitsuta
Players	Single player
Genre	Cinematic adventure (detective mystery)
Chapters	6 – a prologue and five cases
Partner Pokémon	4 rideable partners: Growlithe, Galarian Darmanitan, Luxray and Pangoro
Released	6 October 2023 (worldwide, the same day in Japan, North America, Europe, Australia and South Korea)
Rating	ESRB E · PEGI 7 · CERO A · ACB PG · GRAC ALL
Predecessor	Detective Pikachu (Nintendo 3DS, 2018)
Successor	None yet
Sales	101,887 boxed copies in Japan in its first two weeks (Famitsu)

Overview · Quick Answers · Story · Cases & Partners · Gameplay · Characters · Culprits & Villains · Pokémon · Regional Variations · Videos · Trivia · Legacy · Sales & Reviews · Media

Overview

Detective Pikachu Returns is a story-led mystery adventure for Nintendo Switch and the sequel to the Nintendo 3DS game Detective Pikachu. Developed by Creatures Inc., it came out on the same day all over the world, 6 October 2023, published by The Pokémon Company in Japan and by Nintendo everywhere else. The story is set two years after the R incident that closed the first game: Tim Goodman is now a university student, he and his gruff, coffee-loving partner have become Ryme City’s most famous crime-solving double act, and Tim’s father, Harry, is still nowhere to be found.

Each case is played in two halves. First Tim gathers the facts: he looks over crime scenes, questions witnesses and relies on Pikachu, the only Pokémon he can understand, to interview the city’s Pokémon for him. Every statement and clue goes into his case notebook, and once enough is known the player links it all together on a deduction screen to work out what happened and who is to blame. The big new idea is the partner Pokémon: Pikachu can now ride Growlithe to follow scent trails, Galarian Darmanitan to smash through rock and ice, Luxray to see what lies behind walls and Pangoro to shove heavy blocks around. Quick-time action scenes and a string of optional side cases, the Local Concerns, fill out the five main cases.

The sequel took its time. A Switch follow-up was confirmed at the 2019 Pokémon Press Conference, and then nothing more was heard of it for four years, until a Nintendo Direct in June 2023 gave it a name and a release date. The finished game finally settles the cliffhanger the 3DS original left open, explaining why Pikachu can talk and what became of Harry. Its cast of more than 100 Pokémon leans heavily on the Galar region, with Corviknight, Cramorant and Eiscue all playing their parts, yet there is not a single Generation IX Pokémon in it, even though it launched in the Scarlet and Violet era.

Critics found it warm, funny and very easy, a charming first mystery for younger players rather than a test for seasoned sleuths, and it settled at 66 on Metacritic. It went straight in at number one in Japan, and it is still sold on Nintendo Switch today.

Quick Answers

The questions people ask most about Detective Pikachu Returns, answered first and explained further down the page.

Is Detective Pikachu Returns a sequel to the 3DS game?

Yes. It carries on directly from the Nintendo 3DS game Detective Pikachu, picking up two years after that game’s R incident, and it finally answers the questions the first game left open: what happened to Harry Goodman, and why Pikachu can talk to Tim. You can follow it without having played the original, but its big moments land much harder if you have. More →

How many chapters and cases are there?

Six chapters: a short prologue and then five full cases, beginning with the theft of the Aurora Drop jewel and ending with a raid on the Pokémon Unity Lab. Four of the chapters also have optional Local Concerns, small side cases flagged by a blue speech mark above the person or Pokémon who needs help. More →

Which Pokémon can Pikachu ride?

Four of them. Growlithe picks up scent trails, Galarian Darmanitan punches through brittle rock and ice, Luxray’s X-ray eyes see through walls and objects, and Pangoro shoves boulders and crates around in block puzzles. Each skill is used with the R button, and all four partners come back together for the finale. More →

How long is Detective Pikachu Returns, and is it hard?

It is short and very easy. GameSpot’s reviewer took about 15 hours to see the story and most of the side quests. A wrong answer in a deduction is simply crossed out so you can choose again, wandering somewhere you shouldn’t only puts you back where you were, and there is no game over, which is why reviewers pitched it at younger players. More →

Can you still buy and play Detective Pikachu Returns in 2026?

Yes. It is still on sale as a Nintendo Switch game card and as a download from the Nintendo eShop. It is an offline, single-player game with no servers to switch off, so everything in it still works, and Nintendo Switch 2 is backward compatible with original Switch software. More →

Does it connect to Pokémon HOME or the main games?

No. There is no Pokémon HOME support, nothing to transfer to or from the core series and no online play of any kind. Its only links to other games were promotional: a Pokémon Trading Card Game promo card for early buyers in parts of Asia, a detective-hat Pikachu in Pokémon GO and a short animated tie-in. More →

Are there any Generation IX Pokémon in Detective Pikachu Returns?

None, even though it was released during the Scarlet and Violet era. More than 100 species appear, and Galar is the best-represented region, with Corviknight, Cramorant, Eiscue, Galarian Darmanitan, Yamper and Sirfetch’d among the Generation VIII Pokémon you meet around Ryme City. More →

Do I need to have seen the Detective Pikachu film?

No. The game follows on from the 3DS game, not the 2019 live-action film, and the two tell different versions of the story. If anything it is better to go in fresh: as Game Informer’s review pointed out, the film gives away some of the sequel’s biggest revelations. More →

Story

Two years have passed since the R incident. Tim Goodman, now 20 and studying at Ryme University, and his partner Pikachu have become Ryme City’s celebrated detective duo, but the case that matters most to them, the disappearance of Tim’s father Harry, is still unsolved. What begins as the theft of a valuable jewel soon draws them into a run of strange Pokémon incidents across the city, all linked to mysterious cubes that seem to take control of Pokémon, and to a shadowy organisation called Unitas.

The story follows on from the 3DS game rather than the 2019 live-action film Pokémon Detective Pikachu, and the two tell their tales quite differently. Anyone planning to play should know that the film gives away one of the sequel’s key twists.

The full story

The game opens during Pokémon Friendship Week, with Mayor Howard Myers presenting Tim and Pikachu with medals in Fountain Plaza, only for a wild Corviknight to swoop down and make off with Pikachu’s hat. Their first real case follows soon after: the Aurora Drop, a jewel belonging to Ryme City resident Sanjeev Denis, has been stolen. With the help of Denis’s Growlithe, the pair clear the butler, Brandon Barnes, and expose a new member of staff, Larry Turner, whose Cramorant has swallowed the gem. Before it can be recovered, a strange cube on Cramorant’s back takes control of it, and it flies off with the jewel.

The trail leads to the frozen Southern Ruins, where Tim and Pikachu find the missing Professor Trevor Gordon, win over a frightened Galarian Darmanitan and learn that the Aurora Drop may really be a dormant Pokémon from outer space. On the way home they see Mewtwo, carrying Harry Goodman’s unconscious body, brought down by a swarm of Beedrill whose riders take Harry away. Back in the city, Pikachu is framed for wrecking the Slowpoke fountain and locked up. Working from the inside with Luxray, he exposes Will Butler, chief of the Pokémon Protection Bureau, who has been using a disguised Ditto and Control Cubes to pin the blame on innocent Pokémon. In Bamboo Borough, Pangoro joins the team, but a Unitas agent escapes with Emma Myers’s research into merging human and Pokémon minds.

Not long afterwards, Tim works out the truth: Pikachu’s body holds two minds. After Harry’s car crash, Mewtwo saved him by placing his consciousness inside Pikachu. The last chapter takes the team into the Pokémon Unity Lab, where they discover that Unitas is run by Mayor Myers and the scientist Charles Merloch. Merloch wakes Deoxys from the Aurora Drop and fuses with it, but Mewtwo and Pikachu stop him. Harry and Pikachu each return to their own bodies, Merloch is arrested and the Goodman family is reunited at last.

Cases & partner Pokémon

Detective Pikachu Returns is split into six chapters: a short prologue, then five cases that each move the investigation to a new corner of Ryme City or the countryside around it. As a single jewel theft grows into a conspiracy that spans the whole city, Pikachu picks up four Pokémon partners whose skills open up new ways to investigate. Each of them can carry Pikachu on its back, and all four, with Mewtwo, come together for the final push into the Pokémon Unity Lab.

The six chapters

The partner Pokémon

Partners are met as part of the story, and each has a single skill triggered with the R button while Pikachu is riding. In order of joining:

Growlithe

Sanjeev Denis’s loyal Growlithe teams up with Pikachu during the first case. Hold R and scent trails glow blue, leading Pikachu to Barnes’s Ducklett, the hiding Cramorant and, much later, a concealed way into the Pokémon Unity Lab.

Galarian Darmanitan

Met in the Southern Ruins, which it has frozen over to make a home for its Ice-type friends, Darmanitan is calmed down with a Slowpoke Tail. With Pikachu on its back, a press of R sends its fists through rocks, ice and other brittle obstacles.

Luxray

The leader of the Pokémon held at the Ryme City Police Station greets Pikachu with an Electric attack and only agrees to help after Pikachu beats Sableye in a jewel-hunting contest. Its X-ray eyes reveal what is hidden behind walls and objects, which is how Pikachu clears his name and uncovers Will Butler’s dealings.

Pangoro

Another of the station’s detainees, Pangoro is the Pancham that Pikachu stood up for years ago in the Bamboo Forest, although Pikachu’s patchy memory means he doesn’t recognise it. It joins in Bamboo Borough and puts its strength into push-block puzzles.

Riding with the partners

Growlithe: following the scentGrowlithe’s sections are all about tracking. With Pikachu on board, holding R lights up glowing blue trails that show where someone has gone, and the player simply follows the scent to its source. As the first partner to join, in The Missing Jewel, Growlithe is also where players learn how ride sections work.

Darmanitan: smashing throughGalarian Darmanitan clears the way by force. Pressing R makes it punch through brittle rock, ice and other breakable obstacles, opening up new paths through the Southern Ruins and beyond. It can also switch into its Zen Mode form.

Luxray: stealth at the police stationWhile Pikachu is locked up at the Ryme City Police Station in Detainee Pikachu, the story splits in two: outside, Tim and Rachel examine the damaged fountain, while inside the player steers Pikachu and Luxray through the building. A ‘See through objects’ prompt appears whenever Luxray is close to something it can look through, revealing hidden items, routes and evidence against Will Butler. Officers patrol the corridors, and being spotted sends you back to the start of the section. Luxray’s sight is put to work again inside the Pokémon Unity Lab.

Pangoro: push-block puzzlesPangoro’s sections are old-fashioned push-block puzzles. Each press of R shoves a boulder or crate one square in the direction Pangoro is facing; a block that is already up against a wall or another object won’t budge, and nothing can be pulled back. One careless push can leave the way blocked, so the minus button resets the puzzle from the beginning. These grids are among the few places where the game asks you to think several moves ahead.

Mewtwo and the final team-up

Mewtwo is never a rideable partner, but it is the story’s guardian figure. It saved Harry after his accident by placing his mind inside Pikachu, is seen carrying Harry’s body across the sky before Unitas seizes it, and returns in the finale to take on Merloch once he has fused with Deoxys.

For the assault on the Pokémon Unity Lab, Pikachu gathers all four partners: Darmanitan forces a way in, Growlithe sniffs out the hidden entrance and Luxray guides the team through the rooms, until Merloch turns them against the heroes with Control Cubes. They are freed when the cube controller breaks during his battle with Mewtwo.

Gameplay

Detective Pikachu Returns is about talking and thinking rather than battling. Every case runs through the same loop of exploring, gathering testimony and evidence, then deducing what happened, with the partner rides, action scenes and side cases breaking it up.

Investigation and explorationEvery case starts with Tim exploring a compact area, whether a corner of Ryme City such as Fountain Plaza or somewhere further afield like the Denis Residence, the Southern Ruins or Bamboo Borough. He can study crime scenes up close, examine objects and talk to anyone nearby, and anything useful is filed away automatically as evidence. The game tells you once every essential clue has been found, so it is hard to get stuck. The areas are small and split up by loading screens between streets and between the floors of buildings, which some reviewers felt broke the flow of an investigation.

Testimony and talking to PokémonWitness statements drive every case. People are questioned through simple multiple-choice conversations, while Pikachu, the only Pokémon Tim can understand, interviews the local Pokémon and translates what they say. That two-sided view is the heart of the design: many breakthroughs come from a Pokémon noticing something no human saw. Pikachu gives each one its own voice and attitude, so these chats also do a lot of the world-building, turning dozens of species into characters rather than battle opponents.

Case notebook and deductionsTestimony and evidence all go into Tim’s case notebook, which can be opened at any time to look back over the facts. When enough has been gathered, the action moves to a deduction screen laid out like a flowchart: for each question, the player picks the right statement or piece of evidence from a handful of options, edging the case towards its conclusion. A wrong choice is crossed out and you simply try again. There is no fail state anywhere in the game, which keeps the mysteries approachable but very forgiving.

Local ConcernsAlongside the main cases, people and Pokémon with a blue speech mark over their heads have Local Concerns: short optional favours kept in a folder opened with the Y button. There are more than two dozen of them across the four middle chapters, from finding a lost Lillipup and digging up fossils to rounding up Gossifleur for a choir, finding a Pokémon strong enough to open Pablo’s jam jar and fetching a mirror for Mimikyu. A recurring Quiz Professor asks you to find Pokémon that fit her descriptions, and a newspaper keeps a record of the residents you have helped.

Pikachu: a partner, not a fighterAs in the 3DS game, Pikachu has lost most of his Pokémon abilities. He can’t use moves and isn’t especially quick on his feet, so there is no battling at all. Instead he is Tim’s sounding board: he translates for other Pokémon, chips in with comments and jokes while you investigate, and has scenes of his own in cafés and at home with the Goodmans. His love of coffee, above all from Pablo Millan’s Hi-Hat Café, and his unshakeable belief that he is a great detective are as much a part of the series as ever.

Presentation and quality of lifeThe cutscenes are fully voiced, with Kaiji Tang as Pikachu in English and Kōichi Yamadera in Japanese, and the music is by Takuto Kitsuta. Options for faster movement, quicker text skipping and fast-forwarding cutscenes keep things moving, and quick-time action scenes break up the talking and searching. Reviewers liked the smooth performance but were split on the looks: Game Informer thought them a clear step up from the 3DS game, while Nintendo Life found them drab.

Length and difficultyThe game is built as a gentle introduction to mysteries. GameSpot’s reviewer took around 15 hours to finish the story and most of the side quests, and critics agreed that its puzzles rarely stump anyone, not least because the dialogue often hints at the next step after each correct deduction. It is linear and single-player from start to finish, with no online features, downloadable content or in-game purchases, so everything is there from the moment you start.

Characters

The main human cast, plus Ryme City’s best-known Pokémon detective. The profiles cover the whole story, so expect spoilers.

Tim Goodman

Harry’s son, now 20 and a student at Ryme University. Tim has grown into a capable detective in his own right and is still the only person who can understand Pikachu. Honoured by the mayor at the start of the game, he spends the story juggling cases with the search for his father, and it is Tim who finally works out the secret his partner has been carrying. Khoi Dao voices him in English.

Detective Pikachu

The gravel-voiced, coffee-loving Pikachu in the deerstalker Harry gave him. He calls himself a great detective, can talk with both Tim and other Pokémon and, though he can’t use moves, his translations crack case after case. Gaps and contradictions in his memory drive the story, and the finale reveals that his body has been sharing space with Harry’s mind. Kaiji Tang voices him in English.

Harry Goodman

A celebrated Ryme City detective and Pikachu’s former partner, Harry disappeared after a car accident while investigating the R incident. Mewtwo kept his mind safe inside Pikachu, while Unitas later got hold of his unconscious body. Flashbacks explain why he once asked Irene for a divorce: to keep her out of danger. He is back in his own body by the end.

Rachel Myers

The mayor’s daughter and a fellow Ryme University student, Rachel knows her Pokémon and joins Tim on several investigations, introducing him to her professor, Trevor Gordon. Her late mother, Emma Myers, was a researcher whose work becomes the key to Unitas’s plan, and in the finale Rachel helps her father see what the Control Cubes really do. Laura Stahl voices her in English.

Howard Myers

Ryme City’s mayor and Rachel’s father, who has grown wary of Pokémon since his wife Emma died at the Pokémon Unity Lab. He pins medals on Tim and Pikachu at the start, but turns out to be the head of Unitas, which he founded in the belief that it would keep his daughter safe. Once he realises Merloch has been using him, he turns against the scheme, and he later makes peace with Rachel.

Charles Merloch

A scientist hired by the mayor to study ways for people and Pokémon to communicate, Merloch is secretly Unitas’s chief technology officer. He used the organisation, and Emma Myers’s research, to chase his real goal of merging his own mind with a Pokémon’s, draining energy from Pikachu and Harry so that he could fuse with Deoxys. Beaten by Mewtwo and Pikachu, he ends the game under arrest.

More faces around Ryme City

• Irene Goodman: Tim’s mother, who comes to Ryme City with his younger sister Sophia to celebrate his success and stays in Harry’s old flat. A dropped wedding ring and Pikachu’s flashbacks reveal that Harry never really wanted the divorce. Dorah Fine voices her in English.
• Jessica Miller: Rachel’s friend and a former student of Emma Myers, who works at a pizzeria in Bamboo Borough. Unitas comes after her because she has secretly kept a thumb drive holding Emma’s research, and an agent with a cube-controlled Pokémon snatches it in the Bamboo Forest.
• Will Butler: Chief of the Pokémon Protection Bureau, a body set up by Mayor Myers, who takes Unitas’s money to have Pokémon wrongly locked up. Tim, Brad McMaster, Pikachu and Luxray bring him down in Detainee Pikachu.
• Brad McMaster: An arrogant officer in the Ryme City police who sees Tim as a rival and arrests Pikachu over the wrecked fountain. Once Tim proves the detained Pokémon were framed, McMaster joins him against Butler and makes the arrest himself.
• Frank Holiday: The police inspector who brings Tim in on the Aurora Drop case.
• Sanjeev Denis: The Ryme City resident whose jewel, the Aurora Drop, goes missing from his mansion, and whose Growlithe becomes Pikachu’s first partner.
• Professor Trevor Gordon: Rachel’s professor, whose disappearance at the frozen Southern Ruins sets up the second case. Finding him is how the pair learn what the Aurora Drop might really be.
• Pablo Millan: Owner of the Hi-Hat Café and supplier of Pikachu’s coffee. His café has moved to a bigger building of its own near Fountain Plaza.

Culprits & villains

Pikachu never battles in the usual sense. Rampaging Pokémon are calmed down, outwitted or freed from the Control Cubes that drive them, and human culprits are caught out by the evidence. Behind most of the trouble is Unitas, an organisation whose cubes can take over a Pokémon’s mind. Chapter by chapter:

Pokémon

More than 100 species turn up around Ryme City, from long-standing favourites such as Psyduck and Aipom to newer faces from Alola and Galar. None of them can be caught or battled: every one is a character to question, with Pikachu translating. Regional forms include Alolan and Galarian Meowth, Alolan Exeggutor, Galarian Mr. Mime and Galarian Darmanitan, and Galar is especially well represented, with Corviknight, Cramorant, Eiscue, Yamper, Skwovet and Sirfetch’d all playing a part. Yet there are no Generation IX Pokémon at all, even though the game came out in the Scarlet and Violet era. Four Pokémon serve as rideable partners (see above), while the Legendary Mewtwo and the Mythical Deoxys sit at the centre of the story.

Key Pokémon in the story

• PikachuThe detective
• MewtwoHarry’s protector
• DeoxysInside the Aurora Drop
• CorviknightHat thief
• CramorantSwallowed the jewel
• DittoButler’s shape-shifter
• SlowpokeFountain Plaza statue
• EiscueSouthern Ruins puzzle
• DucklettBarnes’s partner
• SableyeJewel-hunting rival
• MamoswineCube-controlled
• BeedrillUnitas swarm

Other faces around the city

• Pidove#519
• Lillipup#506
• Gossifleur#829
• Mimikyu#778
• Psyduck#054
• Aipom#190
• Yamper#835
• Skwovet#819
• Sirfetch’d#865

Regional Variations

Detective Pikachu Returns came out everywhere on the same day, so the differences between regions are small:

• The Pokémon Company published the game in Japan and Nintendo everywhere else, with every territory getting it on 6 October 2023.
• Early buyers of the boxed game at participating shops in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong got a Detective Pikachu promo card for the Pokémon Trading Card Game, numbered 098/SV-P. It has never been released in English.
• Several European versions translate the name: it is Le retour de Détective Pikachu in European French, Meisterdetektiv Pikachu kehrt zurück in German, Detective Pikachu: il ritorno in Italian and Detective Pikachu: El regreso in European Spanish. In Korean it is 돌아온 명탐정 피카츄 (Dor-aon Myeongtamjeong Pikachu). Canadian French, Latin American Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese keep the English title.

Videos & media

Official videos for Detective Pikachu Returns, from the 2019 announcement to the animated tie-in short.

The 2019 Pokémon Press Conference, where a Switch sequel to Detective Pikachu was first confirmed.

The reveal trailer from the Nintendo Direct of 21 June 2023, which gave the game its name and release date.

A Japanese trailer fronted by Pikachu himself, from The Pokémon Company’s official Japanese channel.

Detective Pikachu & the Mystery of the Missing Flan, the animated tie-in short by Polygon Pictures.

Trivia & facts

• 

  The Japanese title, Kaettekita Meitantei Pikachū, translates roughly as ‘The Detective Pikachu Who Came Back’, and the Chinese releases go further still with ‘Great Detective Pikachu: Lightning Return’.

• More than four years separate the sequel’s confirmation at the 2019 Pokémon Press Conference from its release in October 2023, and for almost all of that time nothing more was shown.
• Irene and Sophia grumble about a film of the R incident that left them out, a dig at the 2019 live-action film Pokémon Detective Pikachu, in which Tim’s mother has died before the story begins.
• Cramorant hiding the stolen Aurora Drop by swallowing it echoes the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, in which a stolen gem turns up inside a Christmas goose.
• In both English and Japanese, the actor who voices Pikachu (Kaiji Tang and Kōichi Yamadera respectively) also voices Harry Goodman, which makes perfect sense once the final twist is out.
• Tim is 20 in this game, two years on from the events of the 3DS original.
• Pablo Millan’s Hi-Hat Café has moved into a bigger building of its own near Fountain Plaza, complete with a proper stage.

• 

  Pikachu talks the furious Galarian Darmanitan down by offering it a Slowpoke Tail as a snack.

• The Pokémon Trading Card Game promo given to early buyers has an attack called Ride Dash, a nod to the game’s new ride sections.
• The Quiz Professor, who asks players to find Pokémon matching her descriptions, turns up with a new quiz in four different chapters.

Legacy

What came after

• Worldwide launch – 6 October 2023. Released on Nintendo Switch in every region on the same day. Early boxed copies in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong came with a Pokémon Trading Card Game promo card.
• Number one in Japan – launch week, 2–8 October 2023. Famitsu counted 85,639 boxed copies sold, putting it top of the Japanese chart.
• A second week at the top – 9–15 October 2023. Another 16,248 copies kept it at number one and took it past 100,000 in Japan, to 101,887.
• Detective Pikachu & the Mystery of the Missing Flan – 25 October 2023. An animated short by Polygon Pictures premieres on the official Pokémon YouTube channels.

Where to play it today

Detective Pikachu Returns is still on sale in October 2026, both as a Nintendo Switch game card and as a download from the Nintendo eShop, which needs about 9.7 GB of space. It is a self-contained, offline single-player game with no servers, accounts or online features, so nothing has been switched off and every part of it remains playable. It has never been released on any other platform, though Nintendo Switch 2 is backward compatible with original Switch software.

How it was made

Detective Pikachu Returns was made by Creatures Inc., the studio behind the 3DS original. Katsuyoshi Irie directed it, with Yasunori Yanagisawa as creative director and Masamichi Anazawa as producer. Hiroyuki Jinnai, credited as a general producer, also directed the scenario, which was written by a team that included Yanagisawa, while Takuto Kitsuta composed the music and Atsushi Watanabe led the art direction. The game was built with the Unity engine.

It was announced remarkably early. A Switch sequel to Detective Pikachu was confirmed at the 2019 Pokémon Press Conference on 29 May 2019, the same presentation that unveiled Pokémon HOME and Pokémon Sleep, and then nothing more was shown for four years. The name, the first trailer and an October release date finally arrived in the Nintendo Direct of 21 June 2023. A Pokémon Presents on 8 August 2023 showed more of the story, and the Nintendo Direct of 14 September 2023 introduced the partner Pokémon.

Tie-ins and promotions

Detective Pikachu & the Mystery of the Missing FlanA short animated tie-in by Polygon Pictures, released on the official Pokémon YouTube channels on 25 October 2023. While filming his morning routine, Pikachu is accused by Tim of eating his flan, and the pair go through camera footage of the sealed fridge before unmasking the real culprit: an Applin hiding among the fruit. Kōichi Yamadera reprises Pikachu in Japanese.

Pokémon Trading Card Game promoA Detective Pikachu card numbered 098/SV-P and illustrated by MINAMINAMI Take was an early-purchase bonus with boxed copies in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The 90 HP Basic Lightning Pokémon has two attacks: All-Out Investigation, which draws a card for each heads, and Ride Dash.

Pokémon GOTo promote the game, Pokémon GO brought back the hat-wearing Pikachu first introduced for the 2019 live-action film, now holding a magnifying glass in its idle animation. The film-era version could also evolve into a Raichu in the same deerstalker, and its return gave players who missed it the first time another chance to add Ryme City’s detective to their collection.

Sales & reviews

Sales figures

Neither Nintendo nor The Pokémon Company has published a worldwide sales figure for Detective Pikachu Returns, so the firmest numbers come from Japan. Famitsu counted 85,639 boxed copies sold in its launch week, 2 to 8 October 2023, enough to make it the country’s best-selling game that week, and it stayed at number one the following week with another 16,248, taking it to 101,887 by 15 October. Those figures cover physical copies only, not Nintendo eShop downloads. In the UK it entered the sales chart at number three in its launch week.

• 85,639boxed copies in Japan, launch week (Famitsu)
• 101,887in Japan after two weeks at No. 1
• No. 3UK chart, launch week
• 66Metacritic, from 88 critics

Review scores

Reviews were mixed to positive, and the game settled at 66 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic. Game Informer felt that “the return of this odd pairing with their new bag of tricks is entertaining” (7.25/10), Nintendo Life enjoyed “an endearing and exciting story packed full of fun and light-hearted silliness” (7/10), and GameSpot saw it as “a well-made, gentle adventure and mystery primer for younger players” (6/10).

Critics warmed to the writing and to its star: Pikachu’s grumpy charm, the humour of the cutscenes and the chance to hear Pokémon speak for themselves were widely praised, and several reviews singled out the ride sections with Growlithe, Darmanitan, Luxray and Pangoro as the most welcome change from the first game. The most common complaint was that the mysteries are far too easy, with the deduction screen, generous signposting and the lack of any penalty leaving little real detective work to do. Reviewers also pointed to small, sparse environments, frequent loading screens and predictable twists, some found the visuals flat, and the side cases were seen as simple errands. The consensus was that it makes a likeable, gentle first mystery for younger players and fans of the first game, rather than a challenge for genre veterans.

Media & artwork

• Box art from Detective Pikachu Returns

Further reading

More Detective Pikachu and Nintendo Switch links on the site: