Pokemon Sword / Shield: The Crown Tundra

The better of Pokémon Sword and Shield's two expansions, The Crown Tundra provides the best framework yet for an open-world Pokémon game. The new Dynamax Adventures mode provides one heck of a challenge, and the emphasis on Legendary Pokémon is a nice focal point. A few things could've been handled better, but fans likely won't want to put it down.

The Crown Tundra is a great adventure in Pokémon Sword and Shield. It offers content based on exploration, where we have many Pokémon, as well as a lot of replayability thanks to the Dynamax Adventures and the return of past Legendary Pokémon.

New features, new creatures and an adventure that deserves your time as much as the original Pokémon games campaign. A much better expansion than The Isle of Armor, but if you consider both expansion as a single offer it could be a great new game that deserves to be played.

Overall The Crown Tundra is a welcome addition to the main game adding even more content. Whilst it does not go too out of its way to be different if you are looking for just more of that world then you will not be disappointed. This does bring an end to this Generation of Pokemon and hopefully Gamefreak will learn from these games and make the Pokemon Generation more expansive and story rich.

The Crown Tundra expands the world of Pokémon Sword and Shield with the challenging Dynamax Adventures and new ways to explore Galar looking for Legendary Pokémon.

A good DLC that marks the ending for the new, experimental path chosen by Game Freak and Nintendo for the Pokémon saga. The second expansion included in Shield and Sword Season Pass adds lots of contents and legendary creatures to discover in a brand new area.

Compared to the lackluster The Isle of Armor expansion, The Crown Tundra feels much more fleshed out with enjoyable story quests, on top of the very addictive Dynamax Adventures and Galarian Star Tournament, though there is still something missing that prevents it from taking the series to the next level.

Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Crown Tundra is another fun DLC that offers more cool Pokémon to catch, an awesome new game mode in Dynamax Adventures, and a surprising amount of discovery and secrets. Its weak story, grindy encounters, and modest amount of content are offset by the fact that it nails open-world exploration and the thrill of hunting for legendary Pokémon, even if it doesn’t break a whole lot of new ground doing it.

Does The Crown Tundra completely reinvent Pokemon Sword and Shield and right everything that has dragged the series down in recent years? No, it doesn’t do that. In fact, at its core, it’s still just more of Sword and Shield. However, it does at least augment the core gameplay experience of Sword and Shield in some really interesting ways through Dynamax Adventures and with Wild Areas being packed with more things to do and see.

The Crown Tundra is one of the best things that have happened at this generation of Pokémon games. A rich territory, nourished with content and with a new mode, the Dynamax Adventures, which is a success. Sensational set design, mysteries to discover and ideas that fit together perfectly. The Expansion Pass, adding The Isle of Armor, now feels more than remarkable. A pity to have had to wait a whole year.

The sheer amount of small advances makes all the difference. The expansion cannot shake the disappointing basic structure of Pokémon Sword and Shield, but it can continue to experiment within the defined framework. The result is a clear success.

Quotation forthcoming.

The Crown Tundra is a little inconsistent, but the sheer amount of content and the delightful tundra itself make for Game Freaks best open world experience yet. Also, the many legendary Pokémon and the cooperative Dynamax Adventures give Sword and Shield some welcome new endgame experiences.

This icy region with its numerous legandary Pokémon, a neat story and the Dynamax adventure gives you a lot of fresh content to explore.

Pokémon fans now have some great new challenges, new Pokémon and more dynamic areas to explore. We wish it had been there from the start. [Issue #2, p.76]

Now that the season pass is in the hopper, it's easy to feel like Pokemon Sword and Shield are a transitional generation to something greater.

As an expansion to the main game, The Crown Tundra offers perhaps even less varied distractions than its predecessor, The Isle of Armor, and fewer rewards or strategic advantages to unlock. However, it also potentially offers more playtime, since Dynamax Adventures are sure to keep players invested in search of a sought-after rare or legendary shiny Pokémon with good IVs. Since both expansions can't be bought separately and come bundled no matter what, both ultimately complement one another rather well. It is therefore hard to scoff at what's on offer in the Expansion Pass, although it should only be considered indispensable by the most eager Pokémon fans, who are more likely to get the most value out of it.

The Crown Tundra gives you a lot more engaging content than The Isle of Armor, but it's still a bit lacking in polish. If you like Legendary Pokemon though, this is the DLC for you.

Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Crown Tundra is the better of the two DLCs for the game, though that's not saying much. It manages to weave Pokémon's modern sensibilities with some strong nostalgia for old-time fans like myself, and I found myself more than happy to cycle around The Crown Tundra for hours on end, catching all of the Pokémon I found. If that's not a good result, I don't know what is.

The Crown Tundra brings back some fan favourite Pokémon and provides some much-needed end-game content. However, it’s content felt skin-deep and could have fit easily into the main game.

The Crown Tundra is another fine addition to Pokémon Sword & Shield, but it emphasises many of both the highlights and shortcomings of the base games. The highs are excellent, white hot flashes of wonderment, but they’re a little spoiled by a foundation of ageing game design. We would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed The Isle of Armor, but considering if you’ve paid for that you’ve already paid for this, it’s hard to argue otherwise. The Crown Tundra offers a glimpse of a possible future, and what it does well, it does seriously well, but the series as a whole deserves to be completely dug out of the nearly 25 year-old design philosophies that made the originals great. The world has moved on since Pokémon first arrived, and it’s time for the series to catch up.

Thanks to more content, more organic progression, and a better integrated story, we find what was sorely lacking in the first expansion.

Pokémon Sword and Shield The Crown Tundra it's a finish line in Pokémon eighth generation, but also a sad and limited one. Mostly because nothing makes really difference, although the challenges makes us curious it really doesn't enough.