28 years on, Pseudo-Legendary Pokémon finally have an official name

It appears the elite “Pseudo-Legendary” group now has an official name after The Pokémon Company announced a new in-game event in Scarlet and Violet featuring Dragonite and its superpowered friends.

The Pokémon Company gave Scarlet and Violet players a sneak peek of four events in a post on X (fomerly Twitter) on July 8. The announcement included everything from a Pikachu-themed Tera Raid and Mass Outbreak event to the return of Shiny Gimmighoul Tera Raids and brand new seven-star Tera Raids featuring non-Starters like Dondozo and Dragonite.

These events are exciting to see, but something else caught fans’ eyes—Dragonite, Larvitar, Bagon, Goomy, Hisuian Sliggoo, and Beldum are all referred to as “Powerhouse Pokémon.” Up until this point, fans had been calling these ‘mons “Pseudo-Legendaries” since their final evolutions all have base stat totals (BST) of exactly 600. They’ve been around since Gen I with Dratini, Dragonair, and Dragonite, and now we can officially call them Powerhouse Pokémon 28 years after the original games.

Surprisingly, this announcement wasn’t actually the first time the Powerhouse term has been thrown around. As pointed out by Serebii’s webmaster, Joe Merrick, recent merchandise sold on the Pokémon Center site was part of the “Powerhouse Pokémon” line featuring Salamence, Dragonite, Metagross, and the rest of the 600 BST ‘mons.

With multiple instances of “Powerhouse” being used, it’s safe to say the Pokémon community can start using the term—it just hits a little different from Pseudo-Legendary.

But now that Powerhouse Pokémon have an official name, there’s still one huge debate franchise fans want The Pokémon Company to put an end to: Do Duraludon and Archaludon officially count as Powerhouse Pokémon or have they been frozen out? While Archaludon has a 600 BST like others in the group, it wasn’t introduced in the same generation as Duraludon, and their evolution line is missing a third member.

Perhaps in a future Powerhouse event, Duraludon and Archaludon might sneak in there or be the only ones absent to settle the debate once and for all. To be fair, I noticed Archaludon was excluded from the Powerhouse Pokémon merch line, so that may be a sign the company isn’t putting them in that same elite category.

But for now, we can enjoy adding Powerhouse to our everyday Pokémon terminology.