Pokémon Sword and Shield Post Game: Top Things to Do After Becoming a Champion

Image: Gamefreak

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Penned by Brett Moss

I've been playing video games pretty much nonstop ever since I got my first 360. I love arena shooters, MMOs, and MOBAs, but I'll pretty much try any kind of game.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

The main story of Pokémon Sword and Shield doesn’t take long to beat, so it won’t be long before you’re at a loss for what to do next. Luckily, this game is filled with post-game content, so it won’t be hard to find something to do. In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the most important and fun Pokémon Sword and Shield post game activities you can complete and why you should do them.

Let’s get started!

The Legend Quest

After completing the main game, there’s one more storyline to complete: the legend quest. Completing this quest will allow you to catch your game’s respective legendary Pokémon (either Zacian or Zamazenta). If you were to pick one thing to do in Pokémon Sword and Shield‘s post game, we recommend doing this quest. The legendary Pokémon rewards are extraordinary.

To begin the quest, you must finish the game’s main story first. After that, you’ll want to go to the Slumbering Weald. Travel deep into the area to encounter a pair of NPCs that will begin the storyline. This storyline will take you back across the region once more, and will require you to defeat several NPCs and Dynamaxed Pokémon.

After completing this quest, you will have one of the two “box” legendaries. You cannot get both in the same game, so if you do want both, you’ll have to trade for the other one.

Battle Tower

If you’re looking for a more difficult battle experience but don’t want to play multiplayer, this is the place for you. The Battle Tower is available after completing the main story, and it’s one of the best places to find powerful and fun items. The first thing you’ll want to do here is get to Rank 4 in battle ranks. 

Here’s a list of all the things you want to do at the Battle Tower:

• Acquire the IV checker by reaching Rank 4
• Get the Type: Null Pokémon from the trainer on the left side of the lobby
• Use BP (battle points) earned by battling to purchase items
• Use bottle caps to hyper train your Pokémon

The Battle Tower provides both a fun battling experience as well as great items needed for everything from competitive multiplayer to breeding. If you do nothing else in the post game, you should at least spend some time here.

Hunt Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokémon

Of all the new gameplay additions in Sword and Shield, the Raid Dens have proven one of the most unique and replayable. In the base game, these can be found in the Wild Area that stretches around Hammerlocke and Motostoke. In the DLC, they can be found all throughout the new areas. 

To access these Raid Dens, you simply approach and interact with them. Some will have red beams of light shining up from within — these already have a Dynamax or Gigantamax Pokémon inside. For dens without the beam of light, you can use an item called a Wishing Piece to spawn one. Wishing Pieces can be purchased from the Watt Traders found throughout the Wild Area for 3,000 Watts, or you can try your luck with the Digging Duo and hope they find you one. 

Battling the Pokémon found in the dens is a great way to acquire various items like TRs, Rare Candies, Valuable Items, and more! It’s also a great place to acquire Pokémon with high IVs and Gigantamax capabilities.

Complete the Pokédex and Hunt Shiny Pokémon

For completionists, the Pokémon Sword and Shield post game can stretch on for a good long while. The Galar Pokédex consists of 400 Pokémon to be precise, and if you collect all of them, you’ll be able to collect the Shiny Charm. The Shiny Charm increases your odds of encountering shiny Pokémon by 300%. After you complete the Pokédex, you can get the Shiny Charm from an NPC in Circhester, located in one of the hotels. You do not need to complete the DLC Pokédexes to get the Shiny Charm.

Completing the Pokédex is a long process, so it is useful to use a tracker or app that can help you locate each Pokémon (if you don’t mind making the process easier on yourself). There are also several Pokémon that can only be found in either Sword or Shield, but not both. 

Breeding

Once you have all the Pokémon in the game, it’s time to try getting the best version of each of them too. You can breed Pokémon at one of the Pokémon Nurseries found on Route 5 and in the Wild Area. You’ll have to make sure the two Pokémon you want to breed are compatible, or just use a Ditto with whatever Pokémon you want to breed. 

There are several items and abilities you’ll want to acquire before you start breeding. The two main items you’ll want are the Destiny Knot and Everstone. When given to one of the parent Pokémon, the Destiny Knot ensures that the breeded Pokémon will inherit five IVs from its parents instead of the normal amount. You’ll want to put the Destiny Knot on whichever of your parent Pokémon has the best base stats. The Everstone causes the breeded Pokémon to inherit the nature of the parent, so only use it if you have a parent Pokémon with the right nature. 

There are also new items in Sword and Shield called mints that will allow you to change a Pokémon’s nature. You can get these from the Battle Tower, and they’re a great time saver if you don’t want to spend longer than necessary breeding. 

One other thing you’ll want to have when breeding is a Pokémon with the ability Flame Body in your party. This will cause the amount of steps you need to take to hatch the egg to be halved. While not necessary, Flame Body drastically improves the breeding experience.

Competitive Battling

Once you’ve got yourself a team of high-IV Pokémon, why not try out a bit of competitive battling? Before jumping into this, you will also need to EV train your Pokémon, which you can do by using the consumable items found at the Battle Tower or by battling a specific kind of Pokémon over and over again. 

To find the competitive battling area, go to the VS tab on the menu. From there, click on Battle Stadium. Once you get there, you’ll see several options. Casual and Ranked Battles are the main two areas you’ll be using — Casual if you want to just have fun or if your team isn’t fully trained yet, Ranked if you want to get more serious. Online Competitions is for when a global competition is happening that you can participate in. Check the Pokémon website for more information about those. 

Competitive Battling is easily one of the best places to go once you’ve done everything else the game has to offer. You can spend countless hours there, and you even get some decent rewards for finishing the season with a high rank.

DLC Content

Looking for extra Pokémon Sword and Shield post game content? There are two DLC Expansions for Sword and Shield — The Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra DLC — both of which offer more story and post-game content. I haven’t brought the DLC up through most of this article, since a lot of players likely won’t have access to it, but I did want to talk about it at the end.

In addition to the stories and new legendary missions added by the DLC, there is one place in particular that has to be talked about in terms of late game content. In the Crown Tundra DLC, there is a location called the Max Lair. Within this lair, you can participate in an activity called Dynamax Adventures. These adventures allow you to battle several Pokémon in a raid format, then fight a legendary from older games at the end.

Once you defeat the legendary, you get to pick one defeated Pokémon to keep (including the legendary). Not only is this a fantastic way to acquire all the legendaries you could ever want, but all Pokémon caught this way have a significantly higher chance to be shiny. The odds are specifically 1/300, or 1/100 if you have the Shiny Charm. So if you want shiny Legendaries, this is the best method the Pokémon series has ever had to get them. Take advantage of it if you can.

Join the High Ground

Thanks for reading our Pokémon Sword and Shield post game guide — we hope we’ve given you some great ideas for what you can do in Sword and Shield after finishing the main story! Don’t forget to come back to us for more Pokémon content.

Happy gaming!