Dexit

Pokémon Sword and Shield are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and co-published by mh:awesomegames:Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for the mh:awesomegames:Nintendo Switch. They were released worldwide on November 15, 2019 as the 29th and 30th main installments. They are the first main series games in the eighth generation of the Pokémon franchise, and the second in the series to be released on a home console, the first being Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!. During the game's showcase at Nintendo Treehouse live at E3 2019, Producer Junichi Masuda announced one major change that was met with severe negative backlash in which it caused many to turn against the game before it had initially released, as well as spawning a controversy known as Dexit.

What happened
During the 2019 Pokémon Press Conference, Junichi Masuda announced the cloud based storage app Pokémon Home, the new service that will allow players to transfer and store Pokémon from 3DS's Pokémon Bank, Mobile's Pokémon Go, Nintendo Switch's Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, and at this time upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield. It also allows users to trade Pokémon when using the mobile client. "So what that means for Sword and Shield is that players will be able to transfer their Pokémon from Pokémon HOME, only if they appear in the Galar region Pokédex."

- David Numrich

During the Nintendo Treehouse live at E3 2019 there was a showcase of Pokémon Sword and Shield on the game floor, at the end of the showcase, Junichi Masuda announced that "when the Pokémon HOME service will be live, players will only be able to transfer Pokémon they brought to HOME to Sword and Shield if they appeared within the Galar region Pokédex (in other words the game's regional Pokédex)", which means they will not be able to bring favorites such as their favorite starters (E.G Feraligatr, Blaziken, Infernape, Serperior, Incineroar, and even Greninja), Ultra Beasts or non Galar Legendaries. The reason for this was for balancing reasons and to make higher quality animation. Masuda also stated that this would be case for future main series games.

Aftermath
This decision announcement was met with a huge shock from fans who referred to it as Dexit (a portmanteau of Brexit and Pokédex) which as a result, the entire Pokémon fandom snapped into anger and started to spam #BringBackNationalDex (along with the minimalist poster of Gloria) everywhere on social media. This is also noticable with the YouTube video from the game's showcase at the Nintendo Treehouse livestream with more than 90 thousand dislikes (which can no longer be seen due to Youtube censoring the dislike count as of November 10, 2021) compared to 23 thousand likes. Many fans even called for the games to be delayed until all the Pokémon could be added, unaware that it would also push back the anime and the TCG.

Seventeen days later, in response to the outcry regarding the removal of certain Pokémon from the games, the official Pokémon Twitter page (as well as Junichi Masuda' own Twitter page) made an announcement for Pokémon fans with a link that sent users to the official Pokémon website with a statement from Junichi Masuda that reads:

"Thank you to all of our fans for caring so deeply about Pokémon. Recently, I shared the news that some Pokémon cannot be transferred to Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. I've read all your comments and appreciate your love and passion for Pokémon.

''Just like all of you, we are passionate about Pokémon and each and every one of them is very important to us. After so many years of developing the Pokémon video games, this was a very difficult decision for me. I'd like to make one thing clear: even if a specific Pokémon is not available in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games.''

''The world of Pokémon continues to evolve. The Galar region offers new Pokémon to encounter, Trainers to battle, and adventures to embark on. We are pouring our hearts into these games, and we hope you will look forward to joining us on this new journey.''

June 28, 2019

Junichi Masuda"

Unfortunately this message did nothing to halt the fans anger as they were quick to call out the statement for the lack of any promises for the newer entries in the series who were hoping for future patches, while others were angered that Masuda made a response to the backlash.

Following the game's release, fans who were in support of the controversy strongly criticized the game not just for the exclusion of the aformentioned Pokémon, but also for terrible graphics, lackluster story and dull characters. Further criticism came from the fact that data miners discovered that the models and animation for the Pokémon returning in these games were the same as the 3DS games, resulting in the games being review bombed on Metacritic and the hashtag #GameFreakLied being a trend on Twitter.

Nearly two months after Sword and Shield released, the Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansion Pass was announced as DLC for the pair on January 9, 2020, consisting of two DLC packs; The Isle of Armor, released on June 17, 2020, and The Crown Tundra, released on October 23, 2020 (October 22, 2020 in North America (due to timezone difference)), both of which introduce two whole new areas to explore, as well as 100 returning Pokémon not previously found in the base game for each pack (221 Pokémon from previous generations (including legendaries) in total were added). The expansion pass also came bundled with the base game with a physical release for both games on November 6, 2020. The DLC announcement caused further backlash from fans (despite improving upon the game's flaws), leading them to accuse Game Freak of cutting content just to sell it back.

More than two years after the games were released, Game Freak later sent out a letter on social media reflecting on how the developpement of the game was handled which was met with even more backlash from the community for how poorly the developers handled the overall development and that they should've done something about it to help solve the problem in general.

As of today, 234 species of Pokémon from the previous 7 generations are still missing in this entry.