New Pokémon Release Finally Lets You Play As Team Rocket

Published Oct 19, 2026, 4:53 PM EDT Patricia is the former editor-in-chief of Kotaku, where she spent a decade writing and editing. Prior to that, she served as the Culture Editor at Polygon, and as a reporter at The Verge. Hernandez specializes in Pokémon TCG, Nintendo, and offbeat internet culture stories. Pokémon fans can show Jessie, James, and Meowth how it's done Image: Image: The Pokémon Company International via Bulbapedia Sign in to your Polygon.com account Becoming the best that ever was? Boring. You've already played the plucky hero in Pokémon games — now, with a new upcoming game, you'll finally get to play as the villainous Team Rocket. Such is the promise of Team Rocket Evolved, a new fan project for Pokémon Emerald that turns the monster-catching series on its head. You're still tasked with traveling the land and collecting gym badges, but the way you do it is totally different. In this version of the game, you can steal other trainers' Pokémon. If you're successful in pilfering the Pokémon, your opponent might just concede outright. Youngster Joey and his six Rattata never stood a chance. Team Rocket Evolved gives the villains the starring role Since you're terrorizing Hoenn, the locals will prove hostile in Team Rocket Evolved. Features like Pokémon Centers won't be accessible until after you take control of an area and beat its gym leader. There will be alternate ways of healing your Pokémon, but you should expect this alternate resource to be pricey and scarce. You can also call for backup from the larger organization — no one said the fight had to be fair! The point of the game is to grow from being a lowly Team Rocket grunt to becoming a Team Rocket admin. In a refreshing change of pace, creator EricTurner3 said that he and his wife are not using AI to build the ROM hack. Despite the lack of AI, the development duo are still pulling out all the stops with their fan game. The finished, hand-crafted product is expected to offer every generation of Pokémon, including Mega Evolutions and Dynamax Evolutions. There are new types of trainers to encounter as well. For the softies, Pokémon in this hack can still follow you around as they do in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. If the creators want to be realistic, the Pokémon you steal perhaps shouldn't be too friendly. A hack like this could be a great way to recontextualize instances where Pokémon don't obey the player's commands. The Team Rocket Evolved project is still in development, and the creators are encouraging fans to send ideas or requests via the official subreddit.