Pokémon Fans Have Fallen In Love With This Heartbreaking Brand-New Pokémon

3 days ago 5

Pokémon's Ash has his mouth open as he looks down at a wounded Pikachu.

Published Mar 6, 2026, 9:55 AM EST

Austin King is the Senior Editor of Gaming at ScreenRant and has been with the site since 2020 with a focus on RPGs and tabletop games. He previously managed content for Geek to Geek Media, and has served as a writer for sites like Nintendad, Geek Fitness, and more.

In addition to his work at ScreenRant, he also hosts the Dragon Quest FM podcast and is the author of several books, including co-writing Nimbus (a #1 bestseller in 2013). His latest is the nonfiction The Dragon Quest Book, available now.

He's written about pop culture, video games, and genre studies over the course of his career. You can find him on BlueSky, X, and at Dragonquestaustin.com

It's been a big week for Pokémon. Between Pokémon Pokopia releasing to enormously high review scores and the first official reveal of Gen 10's Winds and Waves games, there have been a number of new Pokémon designs to check out. However, there's one brand-new Pokémon that is breaking hearts thanks to its backstory.

With the release of Pokémon Pokopia, which has a number of new designs, we're finally getting to see what these newest 'Mon are all like in-game. Some have somewhat humorous backstories, like Mosslax being a Snorlax who slept for too long and got moss growing over it. At least one, however, has a pretty sad reason for looking the way it does, and it's already creating a big stir over on X.

Pokémon's Latest Monster Has Won Over Gamers Worldwide

Peakychu, a new Pikachu design, looks like a grayed-out version of the original Gen 1 fan-favorite, but there's a reason for its sickly pallor. Its Pokédex entry reveals that "When its friends were sick, this Pokémon repeatedly shared its own electricity with them. As a result, its physical structure changed, and it became unable to generate electricity." Understandably, fans had a lot of big feelings about this.

"That's... incredibly sad," reads one of the comments on X. Others comments are sharing various memes and gifs of people and animals crying. "So traumatic," reads another comment.

Peakychu and many of the other new designs in Pokopia had been previously revealed, but this marks the first time players are really getting to see them in-game and interact with them now that the game has launched. As the series mascot, Pikachu already had a lot of adoring fans, which only adds to why people are feeling so sorry for this pitiful new Pokémon.

Peakychu Is Absolutely Adorable, And Heartbreaking

The story behind Peakychu is certainly heartbreaking, but it's made even sadder by just how cute the Pokémon is in Pokopia. An adorable new monster who sacrificed their own health to try to help their friends isn't the darkest Pokédex entry the series has ever had, but it's still pretty sad.

Although Pokémon Pokopia has only been out for a couple of days, it looks like Peakychu is already winning over hearts and minds thanks to its sacrifice. Hopefully, there's some good news awaiting this Pokémon in the game (we'll find out soon enough, now that we're all playing it). Either way, it's one of the more heartbreaking backstories in Pokémon, and looks like Cubone may have some competition now.