The final Pokémon in the video game franchise’s current National Pokédex, which is basically just a numbered list of different Pokémon and their evolutions, has finally been officially revealed by the Pokémon Company International. Volcanion, as the critter is known, is not only a Mythical Pokémon: it’s also the very first of its type.
Volcanion is what’s known as a dual-type Fire and Water Pokémon — the very first Pokémon to ever feature both types together. See, part of the way the video game works is that Pokémon of certain types are weak to Pokémon of other types, and Fire is weak to Water. There’s a whole slew of different types like Psychic, Bug, Dragon, Dark, Ice, and more, and their weaknesses function as a kind of Rock, Paper, Scissors game writ large. Needless to say, dual-type Pokémon where one type is a weakness of the other is pretty uncommon.
Here’s how the company describes Volcanion:
It uses fire and water to create steam within its body, expelling explosive shock waves and boiling steam from the arms on its back. The power is said to be great enough to blow away an entire mountain, gouging out the earth and changing the shape of the land.
It’s worth noting that this is only the little monster’s official reveal. As with every Pokémon release, spelunkers had long ago plumbed the game’s code to determine that it was part of the Pokédex released as part of the Pokémon X, Pokémon Y, Pokémon Alpha Sapphire, and Pokémon Omega Ruby generation of games. This is fairly common with Pokémon expected to be released later as part of distribution events, which is likely the case for Volcanion as it “cannot be encountered through regular gameplay.”
