It’s been three months since New Pokémon Snap came along to brighten up our Switches, meaning there’s a fair chance you’ve explored far and wide, and perhaps even snapped ‘em all. So good news: a free update is arriving August 3, adding in three new areas, and 20 new Pokémon.
In what honestly looks like it could easily have been paid DLC, the new downloadable freebie is going to add in three new sets of rails to ride, new monsters, new behaviors for old Pokémon to photograph, and each with their own day and night mode.
First up is Secret Side Path, in which your NEO-ONE (the bubble-like vehicle in which you ride) will apparently shrink down all tiny, so the Pokémon look enormous. Which is brilliantly daft. The announcement for the DLC adds, “You can even hear their breathing and footsteps in this thrilling area,” which frankly sounds terrifying.
Then comes Mightywide River, which is apparently the source of Belusylva Island’s fresh water. It’s a river ride, including rapids, which doesn’t perhaps seem ideal conditions for nature photography.
Lastly is Barren Badlands, set on Voluca Island, where many a Pokémon trainer has visited, but none has ever returned. Littered with the corpses of previous photographers, it’s a land ruled by grotesquely pierced and tattooed Jigglypuffs, and battle-hardened Pichus that would soon as tear off your face as excitedly rock from foot to foot... OK, sorry, I’m lying. But it should have been that. Instead the so-called “Badlands” are just a bit dusty, with some poisonous swamps, and a vanishingly small chance of being held in a cage suspended over a ravine as a pawn in a war over the last scraps of potable water.
They don’t yet say which those 20 new pocket monsters will be, but see if you can spot any in the trailer. There’s less than a week to wait to find out. The content will drop at 6pm PDT on August 3.