Pokemon Sword And Shield Trailer Reveals New Attack, Abilities, Items, And More

New information regarding Pokemon Sword and Shield's battle system was revealed during the opening ceremony of the Pokemon World Championships in Washington D.C.--including a new trailer.

Sword and Shield producer, Junichi Masuda, told the attending crowd that the 2020 championship would use Sword and Shield. To drum up even more interest in the upcoming title and next year's competition, a new trailer revealed some new Pokemon attacks and abilities, as well as some of the new held items trainers can use in battle.

Galarian Weezing's mystery ability has been revealed as Neutralizing Gas, which has the power to nullify all other abilities on the field, including your teammates. The trailer shows Gastrodon's Storm Drain and Rotom's Levitate abilities being negated as examples. Elsewhere, Corviknight's new ability is called Mirror Armor. This allows the flying Pokemon to reflect any stat lowering effects back at their opponent.

In terms of attacks, the trailer shows Breaking Swipe, a brand new attack that can hit two Pokemon at once, lowering their attack. It's not known what type of attack this is, but the trailer shows Flygon using it.

The trailer also reveals two new held items. The first of which is Room Service, which lowers the speed of the Pokemon holding it during Trick Room. The other is Jet Pack, a useful item that switches out a Pokemon if its stats are lowered. The trailer shows Duraludon using what looks like Draco Meteor to dismiss Kommo-o.

Lastly, some interesting new information was revealed about Dynamax Pokemon. These gigantic Pokemon can shrug off moves that would otherwise cause flinching, allowing them to attack freely. Their Max Moves, meanwhile, have powerful secondary effects. The electric-type Max Move creates Electric Terrain on the field, the fighting-type effect increases the attack of every Pokemon on your side, the ice-type one cause Hail to fall--damaging Pokemon not of the ice type--and the flying-type Max Move removes walls and other traps.

Pokemon Sword and Shield will launch November 15 for Nintendo Switch.