Pokémon Fans Split Over New Chimchar Evolution

2 hours ago 8

Published Jul 26, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

It isn't particularly rare for previous-gen Pokémon to get entirely new evolutions in new games. Naturally, with Winds and Waves on the horizon, many are wondering whether it will offer up its own unique variants of specific Pokémon or introduce entirely new evolutions. While we're still yet to get confirmation about what kind of Pokémon we can expect to see in Winds and Waves, we have been treated to a brand-new evolution for everyone's favorite fiery ape.

To be clear, this isn't a brand-new Pokémon redesign, where an existing mon gets a makeover but is more or less the same creature. This is a whole new set of evolutions for Chimchar, the gen 4 Pokémon introduced in Diamond and Pearl. However, as exciting as it is to see it get new evolutions, the reveal has turned more than a few heads and has gotten fans talking about it. Suffice it to say, not everyone is particularly pleased with how it looks.

Chimchar playing in a field in Pokemon anime.

As part of a groundbreaking new discovery, a whole host of new Pokémon Diamond and Pearl evolutions have been discovered. In fact, entire new concept designs and Pokémon have been uncovered in a documentary uploaded to the lewtwo website that focuses on the behind the scenes making of the gen 4 games. As part of this new collection of concept art, evolutions, Pokémon, and details, we've gotten a glimpse at what fans are describing as Beta Chimchar.

These are the original designs for Chimchar and his evolutions, and they absolutely look drastically different to what we ended up receiving. Infernape almost looks like an entirely different Pokémon, barely resembling the incredibly imposing and intimidating fighter that we ended up getting. It is fascinating to get a glimpse at what could have been, as well as a look at what goes into the design process for each Pokémon and how much they change over time. However, not every fan has enjoyed this piece of history, as Chimchar has gotten a little bit of hate.

Over on the Centro Leaks post on X that showcased the alternate evolutions, fans have been relentlessly criticizing how it looks, especially the previous version of Infernape. User Dre comically posted that they "would’ve left my Chimchar like Paul did if that was the final evolution," while user jason xxi commented saying "what is that final evolution thing?" Clearly, Game Freak was right in switching to the current version of Infernape, although not everyone hates the final evolution and the Beta Chimchar designs in general quite so much.

User James Perrott liked the designs, stating, "slightly more buff and taller Infernape is WAY better than what we got ngl." Similarly, user The_Littz posted, "I’m torn, I think I like both of these." It appears that Game Freak just gave the original design for Monferno to Infernape as it likely wouldn't have gone over well with younger players considering just how unsettling it looks. While it's unlikely Pokémon Diamond and Pearl would have suffered had it used these Chimchar evolution designs, it is perhaps for the best that we ended up with what we got.