Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Newest Monster Is a Ghost Puppy [IGN]

The latest Pokémon coming to Scarlet and Violet is called Greavard, a ghost puppy that may or may not steal your soul.

A cinematic new trailer from The Pokémon Company (below) shows a trainer from the Paldea region’s Naranja Academy on a quest to discover the new pocket monster. First passing by Mimikyu and Gengar, who are old news, the trainer finally comes across Greavard.

With a spooky purple candle atop its head, the puppy Pokémon seemingly enjoys hiding underground but is just as happy to play with the trainer. It does everything a regular dog would, like rolling over and chasing sticks, but it also appears to slowly steal the trainer’s soul the more she plays.

Commenting in the trailer that she’s more out of shape than she thought, the trainer eventually blacks out, perhaps as a result of playing with Greavard. While the pup does come and lick the trainer as if to check if she’s okay, it might all be part of its evil ruse to steal human souls.

While the dark turn doesn’t seem like something The Pokémon Company would include, the mostly cute and cuddly pocket monsters often have quite sinister backstories. Drifloon, for example, the cute purple balloon Pokémon, has the following Pokédex entry: “Stories go that it grabs the hands of small children and drags them away to the afterlife. It dislikes heavy children.”

Greavard is the latest in a growing list of new Pokémon coming in Scarlet and Violet, the ninth generation of games that will be released for Nintendo Switch on November 18. They bring a series first cooperative mode, an open world set in the Paldea region, and legendary Pokémon that turn into motorbikes.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.