12 Best Games Like Pokémon to Play Next

Pokémon did not just invent a genre, it built a comfort zone: wander a colourful world, catch creatures, raise favourites, and test them against other trainers. When you have done that across nine generations, where do you go? These twelve games each take the formula somewhere different — some copy it lovingly, some bend it into survival games, farming sims and dark JRPGs.

The Closest Relatives

Temtem (PC, PS5, Xbox Series, Switch) is the faithful MMO take: an airborne archipelago, hundreds of Tems to catch, and a fully co-op campaign where every battle is a 2v2. Coromon (PC, Switch, mobile) is the purist's pick — a pixel-art adventure that plays like a lost Game Boy Advance Pokémon game, with modern touches like difficulty options and a built-in randomiser. Cassette Beasts (PC, Xbox, Switch, mobile) twists the idea beautifully: you record monsters onto cassette tapes and transform into them yourself, and two players can adventure together.

Creature Catching, Different Genre

Palworld (PC, Xbox Series) is the phenomenon: yes, you catch Pals in spheres, but then they staff your factory, defend your base and join you in third-person shooter fights — Pokémon's grammar in a survival game's sentence. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (PC, PS4, Switch) hatches Monsties from stolen eggs and runs turn-based battles built on a rock-paper-scissors triangle, inside a proper story-driven JRPG. Shin Megami Tensei V (Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox) is the grown-up option: negotiate with demons in a ruined Tokyo, fuse them into stronger horrors, and expect to be punished for sloppy type matchups.

Digimon World: Next Order (PC, PS4, Switch) revives the virtual-pet roots — you raise two partners at once, feeding and training them through life cycles rather than catching a squad of six. Monster Sanctuary (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch) is a Metroidvania where your monsters are also your traversal tools, and battles run 3v3 with deep skill trees. Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX (PC, Switch, iOS) remasters the cult classics that once generated monsters from your music CDs; the DX versions draw from an in-game database instead, keeping the raising-and-tournament loop intact.

The Cosy Corner

Bugsnax (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) sends you to Snaktooth Island to photograph, trap and feed people creatures that are half bug, half snack — stranger and sadder than it looks, in a good way. Slime Rancher (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch) swaps battling for vacuuming up jiggly slimes and farming their valuable plorts in first person. Ooblets (PC, Xbox One, Switch) settles arguments with dance-offs instead of fights, wrapped around farming and small-town befriending.

Where to Start

If you want Pokémon with fresh paint, start with Temtem or Coromon. If you want the catching loop in a totally different game, Palworld and Monster Hunter Stories 2 are the big swing picks. And if your favourite part of Pokémon was never the battling at all, Ooblets and Slime Rancher are waiting with the kettle on.

Two last pointers before you commit. If challenge is what you miss — modern Pokémon games are famously gentle — Monster Sanctuary's 3v3 battles and Shin Megami Tensei V's fusion system will test team-building in ways the main series rarely does. And if you mostly play handheld, Cassette Beasts is the sleeper pick: it runs beautifully on Switch and mobile, supports two-player co-op, and its fusion system, where any two monsters can combine into a unique hybrid, generates the kind of delighted surprises that made you fall for this genre in the first place.