How to start Pokémon Scarlet and Violet The Teal Mask

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s first DLC expansion, The Teal Mask, takes players on a new adventure to the land of Kitakami as part of a school trip. Actually accessing that content isn’t as simple as loading into the game, however.

Once you’ve purchased The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion from the Nintendo Switch eShop and double-checked your copy of Scarlet or Violet is updated to the latest version, just booting up the game won’t actually give you access to the DLC or any of the cool bonus content included with the new release.

How to access Pokémon Scarlet and Violet The Teal Mask DLC 

After making sure to purchase The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion that is compatible with your version of Scarlet or Violet, since you can’t use the same DLC pass for both titles, check to make sure your game is updated to at least version 2.0.1. Then you can launch your game and prepare for your next journey.

Once you load in, you should instantly receive a call on your Rotom Phone from Jacq asking you to go to the Academy’s main entrance hall back in Mesagoza.

Going inside, you will see a new character with a yellow text box talking about the school trip—who seems to have a connection to both DLC stories and an interest in your Tera Orb and the Great Crater of Paldea.

This is Ms. Briar, who teaches at Blueberry Academy. She is a descendant of Heath, the original author of the Scarlet and Violet Books. That is the location you will visit in the second part of SV’s DLC, The Indigo Disk and is apparently located in the Unova region.

After a cutscene that might have a lot of implications for the entire DLC storyline, you can speak with Briar again to set out to Kitakami.

Do you need to beat Pokémon Scarlet and Violet to start The Teal Mask DLC?

Much like with Sword and Shield’s DLC, it appears you don’t need to have beaten Scarlet and Violet’s base game to access The Teal Mask’s content.

Jacq’s initial call actually acts as if you are still in the middle of your Treasure Hunt and he is interrupting you to talk about a school trip that happens “every year around this time” that you have been chosen to attend. He even says you don’t have to attend but urges you to do so.

It looks like there is a bit of level scaling too depending on if you have beaten the game. The cap appears to be at least level 60 for certain trainers and Pokémon if you have completed Victory Road, which lines up with being just around most fights with trainers like Geeta and Nemona at the end of the base game’s main story—though it seems to vary by area.

I brought a team consisting of a level one Bagon and level five Pikachu to test if the level scaling was based on your team rather than something like the badges you have collected—which is what Sword and Shield checked for. Unfortunately, you can’t manipulate the levels and the first thing I encountered was a level 54 Poochyena.

How to access Pokémon Scarlet and Violet The Teal Mask DLC bonuses

As soon as you purchase the DLC expansion pass from the eShop you can boot up your game and open up the start menu. From there, a small section on the bottom right of the menu shows a banner image for the DLC that you can interact with.

Doing so will give you some options to check for any additional content that you may have unlocked after purchasing the DLC, such as a new set of avatar clothing.