Pokopia‘s first big paid DLC, Bubbly Basin, has been out less than a week. But already, someone has figured out how to drain all (well, most) of the water out of its new, almost entirely underwater area, freeing up the space for land-based Pokémon to thrive (and potentially irritating all the water-types).
Reddit user DarthSkippyGP posted a series of screenshots to r/Pokopia showing off the “Bubble-less Basin.” And it’s exactly what you think it is: Bubbly Basin, but with no water (except the rain). They do note in their post that there are four water sources that cannot be removed, but in the comments it sounds like those sources are in certain quest-related areas that cannot be tampered with (the sound stage, around the watermelon patch) and may become removable if the quests that involve them are completed.
Of course, the immediate question this raises is, what happens to all the water-type Pokémon? What about the fish? Well, it seems like they’ll be fine. I grabbed a handful of very fish-themed Pokémon who you wouldn’t expect to thrive on land and dragged them to the surface in my own game, and no one had anything bad to say about that experience:
The reverse is not true, though. While water-type Pokémon like Magikarp who are not native to Bubbly Basin had a fabulous time under the waves:
…land-based Pokémon you would not expect to swim were so miserable they simply noped out.
(I also tried Snorlax, but I think he couldn’t even fit in the submarine, and didn’t even spawn in. Magby reacted the same way as Flareon, though.)
All of this science is in keeping with Pokémon‘s long history concerning Pokémon can and cannot survive. Since Gen 1, Pokemon like Goldeen and Magikarp have been capable of surviving on land (or at least you could throw them out in battle with relatively few problems). But when Gen 3 introduced diving, there were no battles underwater, and no indication that any Pokémon other than certain water types would be okay down in the depths.
Which is all to say, if you want your land-based Pokémon to exist in Bubbly Basin, you need to drain the ocean. Or make a sick tunnel, like this person did:
built an underwater tunnel for pokemon who can’t breathe underwater and now it looks like they’re on an ocean park field trip 🥹 pic.twitter.com/HkuaMEeQVP
— somnus / dain (@dreizehnth) August 9, 2026