Pokémon Pokopia’s first time-limited event starts next week on March 9, and it adds Hoppip, Skiploom, and Jumpluff to the game. These grass-type Pokémon are, unfortunately, exclusive to the event, which means that if you’re not playing the game in its first month, you might miss out on adding them to your island. However, if you already have the game and want to get Hoppip and its evolution line on your island now, you actually can by messing with the Switch 2’s system settings.
IGN reports that if you change your Switch 2’s internal clock to a day and time within the March 9 to 24 event dates, you can already access the “More Spores for Hoppip” event, which means the event itself seems to be tied to the Switch 2’s date and time rather than a patch or update. What remains to be seen is if this exploit will work in the opposite direction, meaning that someone who gets the game later might be able to turn back their Switch 2’s clock to these dates and still recruit Hoppip, Skiploom, and Jumpluff for their island, even if they missed the official window.
Pokopia will likely get future updates that are patched in rather than already in the game’s files, but it does make me curious if any of the upcoming events are already in the game and could be accessed by time traveling. Maybe next time Nintendo announces an event, folks can use this same method to check. For now, there’s still plenty to discover in the game, from dark lore drops to cute interactions between different Pokémon you meet.