Pokémon Winds and Waves leak say Elite Four will surprise fans

Published Aug 3, 2026, 1:21 PM EDT

As fans know, the Elite Four is a challenge near the end of a Pokémon game, where players have to beat the most formidable trainers in the land. Should the player survive those four consecutive battles, they are tasked with facing the regional champion. The player must use the same team throughout, and can only use the items they are already carrying.

According to a recent post by leaker BallGuy, Winds and Waves' Elite Four are themed to capture the essence of all Pokémon games. The Elite Four will apparently have specialists in fire, grass, and water (the starter types), as well as electric and normal types. Two of these types, grass and electric, have never appeared in the Elite Four before. BallGuy clarifies that Winds and Waves' champion is not a normal-type trainer, which is a relief: While novel, some fans might've seen it as too basic a concept for the games' final showdown.

What clues can we discern from looking at the back of Browt?Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo

Depending on how you slice it, two other elements still haven't appeared in previous games, normal and fairy. Technically speaking, monsters of such types have been a part of previous teams, but those elements weren't necessarily the elite trainer's specialty. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's Indigo Disk DLC does include an Elite Four member named Lacey who is a fairy-type expert, but she's not present in the main game — and the DLC has its own separate Elite Four squad. Larry, another gym leader in the game, initially fights the player as a normal-type gym leader; when he reappears as a part of the Elite Four, he switches up to a flying-type team.

Previous leaks for the upcoming open-world monster catching games claim that we already know what the map looks like, and all the gym leader types within it. These reportedly include gym types such as grass, poison, flying, fighting, dark, normal, steel, and fairy. That is, assuming that the leaks are correct — and Game Freak hasn't changed its plans since the Terraleak a few years ago.

What we don't know is how the player will progress through the game, and how much freedom they will be given to approach these challenges. Can gyms be tackled in any order? Will the Elite Four offer some type of special challenge or puzzle before they can be defeated? Are any of these gyms or E4 members accessible only through flying or diving?

With no release date for Pokémon Winds and Waves, we can only sit and speculate until Game Freak hits us with another update. That, or settle for Pokémon Pokopia's new underwater DLC.