How to play Pokemon in Minecraft

Since Minecraft is a sandbox title, loads of third-party features can be added to it. These are usually catered to the player base by mods that pack several custom features like new mobs, structures, gameplay mechanics, items, and blocks, completely changing how the game looks and feels. Some of the most popular types of mods made for Minecraft are Pokemon-related.

Pokemon mods add a bunch of new entities textured to look like different Pokemon, along with various new items, blocks, GUIs, and structures. Since the game has a vast open world, it is the perfect base for Pokemon-inspired gameplay, where you can traverse through it, find different creatures, fight them, or collect them.

This article features some of the best mods to play Pokemon on Minecraft.

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Ways to play Pokemon in Minecraft

Pixelmon mod and modpack

Pixelmon is an older and more popular Pokemon mod for Minecraft (Image via reforged.gg)

When it comes to Pokemon mods, Pixelmon is among the top searches online. It is extremely popular within the Minecraft community and is great for anyone who wants to play with Pokemon in the block game.

It has been downloaded several million times from various websites and even added to some public multiplayer servers.

There are essentially two ways to play through this mod, either by downloading the mod itself or downloading the modpack that adds several other mods to support Pixelmon.

Both the mod and modpack are available on CurseForge. However, it is recommended to download the Pixelmon modpack using the Forge App so that it automatically installs the modpack. Since it is an older mod, it only runs on the 1.16.5 game version and Forge API.

Pixelmon adds many aspects related to the Pokemon franchise, like the creatures themselves and the ability to breed, trade, and battle them. It also adds new items like Pokeballs, TMs, and Pokeex.

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Cobblemon mod

Cobblemon is a relatively new and improved Pokemon mod for Minecraft (Image via Sportskeeda)

While Pixelmon still holds its position as the most popular Pokemon mod, a few modders in the community recently came up with a new one that could soon be just as popular. The Cobblemon was released in November 2022 and already has half a million downloads from Modrinth.

This new mod blends much better with the overall Minecraft aesthetic than Pixelmon. This is because all the creatures have a blocky and pixelated texture compared to the smooth and high-resolution Pokemon in Pixelmon.

The UI layout of the Cobblemon mod for Minecraft (Image via Modrinth/Cobblemon)

Apart from that, the overall custom UI that comes with the mod looks much more pleasing and accessible.

As of now, players can only download the mod either from Modrinth's website or Cobblemon's own website. It also runs on a newer 1.19.2 version and is available for both Fabric and Forge APIs.