How to get regional Vivillon forms in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

For the first several months following the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, players were tragically confined to finding just one type of Vivillon in the game. Bug Pokémon fans were stuck with the admittedly pretty-looking Fancy Form, and there was nothing they could do about it. Nothing, that is, until the 1.2.0 patch hit the games. This update added Pokémon Go connectivity, which in turn threw open the gates to all the different regional varieties of Vivillon. Here’s how to get them.

Related: How many Vivillon forms are in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Answered

How to get regional Vivillon forms in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

The first thing you’re going to want to do is connect your Pokémon Go and Pokémon Scarlet or Violet accounts. This will allow you to exchange some items between the two games — specifically, you can send a Postcard from Pokémon Go to your Pokémon Scarlet or Violet game, and you can receive a Coin Bag and a Golden Lure in Pokémon Go. Note that this can only be done once a day.

The Postcards are the important thing to take note of for Vivillon fans. Postcards can be collected in Pokémon Go to give players a chance to catch Scatterbug, Vivillon’s earlier evolutionary form, and Postcards from different regions will attract Scatterbugs that will evolve into differently-patterned Vivillons. The same thing happens in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet when you send a Postcard — it will activate encounters with the Vivillon with that particular region’s pattern out in Paldea.

With twenty different Vivillon patterns to find, the true collectors will have their work cut out for them. However, you don’t have to be a global traveler to attain all the different Vivillons in Pokémon Go and now, by extension, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. If a friend on Pokémon Go sends you a Postcard from a different region, you can use that to access the Vivillon of that region too. In addition, as more and more different regional Vivillons get caught in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, they’ll likely come up for trade as well, so completing the collection should be well within reach.