The Pokemon Company issued a public announcement that Pokemon Global Link would be shutting down February 24th, 2020 next year. The service had been in operation since around 2011 but now it’s all coming down as the company focuses on more lucrative alternatives, namely those found on the Switch.

The news was made public over on the Pokemon GL website, where they have a very brief two paragraph announcement about the shutdown.

A number of recent games will actually be affected by the shutdown, including Pokemon Sun and Moon…

“After more than nine years of operation, the Pokémon Global Link (PGL) service will be retired on February 24, 2020, at 23:59 UTC. After PGL service has ended, you will no longer be able to use any gameplay features that require a connection to the PGL on your Pokémon Ultra Sun, Pokémon Ultra Moon, Pokémon Sun, or Pokémon Moon games. You will still be able to use other online functionality apart from the PGL.

 

“Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield will provide services similar to the PGL’s Rating Battles and Online Competitions features and will be available to play via Nintendo Switch.”

The service had been available throughout the Nintendo 3DS lifespan.

Typically if you wanted to check battle ratings, championships, or participate in regional events, you would use the Global Link service to hitch up to the network and either find opponents or partake in tournaments.

Well, now that the service is coming to an end, it means that all related gameplay functionality and features attached to the PGL will no longer work.

This is one of the huge downsides to the “all digital future” that so many companies have been pursuing. Once the servers go kaput, so does all of the attached gameplay features and functions.

If you regularly made use of the Pokemon Global Link, then get in your game time while the game time is good, because come February 24th, 2020 it will no longer be accessible.

(Thanks for the news tip MaverickHL)