The division of the Pokédexes will continue in the Expansion Pass for Pokémon Sword & Shield, as the Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra DLC areas will each have their own Pokédexes.
Pokémon Sword & Shield earned a lot of flack in the run-up to their release when it was revealed that the National Dex wasn’t part of the game. Game Freak had decided that it would be infeasible to include every Pokémon in the series up to that point in the Galar region, so only around 400 Pokémon made it into the game. This caused a backlash from fans who were furious that their favorite Pokémon didn’t make it into the game, though this didn’t cause much of an impact on sales, as Pokémon Sword & Shield have sold almost 18 million copies to date.
Pokémon Sword & Shield are adding new content that can be accessed with the paid Expansion Pass. The first expansion is the Isle of Armor, which will be released on June 17, and the second is The Crown Tundra, which will be released this autumn. The expansions will add over 100 Pokémon each, all of which can be accessed in the main game. According to the official Pokémon website, the Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra will each use their own Pokédex for cataloging Pokémon.
The two expansions will each add new Wild Areas, to the point where they contain almost all of the content from the Expansion Pass. As such, the new Pokédexes will likely be used to keep track of the Pokémon encountered there and they will be collated in the Galar Dex when the player returns to the main area of the game.
The National Dex might be gone for a while, so it makes sense to use smaller Pokédexes for the time being to keep track of the new Pokémon that are gradually being added to the game. The time might come when all of the existing Pokémon are present in a mainline Pokémon video game on the Switch, but the fans will have to be happy with the Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra Pokédexes for the time being.
Source: Pokémon
