What is Pokémon Showdown? Everything you need to know about it

What is Pokémon Showdown? Everything you need to know about it

May 25, 2026

People interested in the Pokémon universe need to keep up with a lot of things, and one of the most important platforms that they need to know about is Pokémon Showdown. This particular platform is a fan-made simulator that has been launched by a Pokémon fan to ensure that players can easily battle their Pokémon without training them. 

Exploring the main features of Pokémon Showdown

The main reason why this simulator gained such a huge fan following among Pokémon fans is its features. The main thing about Pokémon Showdown is that it lets people simulate Pokémon fights between players. Usually, you can pick from different formats; some are sort of categorised by Smogon, and some are different in a Showdown kind of way.

Another feature of the website is Random battles, or Randbats as people shorten it, is a metagame on Pokémon Showdown where each side gets six random fully evolved Pokémon. One noticeable difference compared to other tiers, even the ones Smogon does, is the removal of “Team Preview”. 

That’s the part where you normally get to see the opponent’s species briefly before the battle starts, but here it’s just gone, so players start without that little hint.

Then there are chat rooms. Showdown runs multiple of them, where users can talk about various things. For instance, you’ll find chat for the Smogon tiers, and each tier has its own room, plus language rooms where people can chat in French or German, and other languages too.

And there’s the teambuilder. It’s a feature on Showdown used to build teams so you can battle other players. Pokémon can be selected alphabetically inside an internal window, but what you’re allowed to pick depends on the format you chose. You can also set up items, abilities, and moves. Illegal setups, for example Pokémon that haven’t been released officially yet, are blocked so they can’t be used.