Pokémon Sword & Shield Isle of Armor level scaling is vexing players

These things happen Casey. No harm done 🙂

— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) June 18, 2020

It had been stated that the new zone and its inhabitants would scale to correspond to the player’s team of Pokémon, even for a team of level 100 Pokémon. However, in encounters, players are finding that the critters are capped at level 60, which is the same level cap as the original Wild Area once the game has been completed. Though players are able to travel to the Isle of Armor as soon as they set foot in the Wild Area outside of Motostoke, the gameplay of the DLC seems to be determined by the number of badges that the player has under their belt. 

I guess it’s possible it scales to level before you beat the champion or something, but all the levels are ~60 regardless of party content in endgame state.

Scaling to # badges seems most likely to me, looking for the code at the moment.

— Michael (@SciresM) June 17, 2020

A dataminer has taken this discovery one step further to dig around in the innards of the DLC. They claim that “Pokémon level in party has zero impact on Isle of Armor battle levels,” and agree that it appears to work on the number of badges. This isn’t confirmed at the moment, though there is a lot of evidence that points towards a level 60 cap for The Isle of Armor. One player rocked up to the battles with a group of level 8 Pokémon, but still encountered level 60 opponents. Another brought a level 100 Pokémon, and found that the highest level that a wild Pokémon had was level 80.

isle of armor: the difficulty scales to your current progress in the game

me: my pokemon are level 100

isle of armor: pic.twitter.com/Jtcmk2JiXm

— nkvd detective pikachu (@dykepikachu) June 17, 2020

Well, I’m having a ball on The Isle of Armor, and I don’t mean Cinderace’s Pyro Ball move which annihilates everything cruelly and indiscriminately, and might be a violation of the Geneva Conventions. The new zone has caverns, and wide open oceans, and fancy bikes, and a ridiculously nefarious rival, and new Pokémon, and the cutest Legendary I ever did see.