Pokémon Ultra Sun & Moon Just Got An Excellent New Fan-Made Expansion

The 3DS era really did feel like a bit of a special moment in gaming generally, but that's particularly true for the stalwarts of the platform's lineup. Top of that list is Pokémon, and we closed out that generation with the release of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, enhanced versions of the similarly named games which released a year earlier.

Though the games arguably didn't do enough with the story of the originals to make things really interesting, many of the changes made were genuinely solid and intuitive, and they quickly rose up to become the ninth-best-selling Nintendo 3DS titles ever. As such, it feels like they go a little underappreciated by the community as a whole, but one new release is currently in the process of changing that in a big way.

Over on Reddit, one user created a post designed to draw attention to the Pokémon Expansion Mod for Ultra Sun and Moon, which they describe as "one of the best Pokemon mods out there".

If you haven't come across it before, the highly ambitious release aims to add all Gen 8 and Gen 9 Pokémon, including Meltan and Melmetal, to Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon. It also goes as far as aiming to add their forms, abilities, and moves, in what realy feels like a native experience that the developer would have intended to deliver.

Work is still ongoing, but the download is in a great state, and there were plenty of responses excited to try it out, or recommend it to those who haven't yet.

"First I'm hearing about it, if it does a good job adding and balancing the newer pokemon for a playthrough then I'd be very excited to play it on my modded 3DS once it is fully completed," one comment read. While another added, "Can’t wait for this to be complete so I can play it!."

The mod is totally free and available to download for your version of the game via GameBanana. Very excitingly, it should also work on any version of the 3DS (if you have completed the steps to make games moddable on your handheld), so you don't even have to get finicky with PC emulators if you don't want to.

The only thing you'll want to make sure of if you are planning to play on PC is that you have a legitimate copy of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon at home, just to keep everything above board.

Released November 17, 2017

ESRB E

Developer(s) Game Freak

Publisher(s) Nintendo

Multiplayer Local Multiplayer