15 Things To Do After Beating Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

Over the years, Pokemon games have been criticized for having lackluster content, especially in recent years considering the post-game. Once you’re finished with the story and become champion, there usually isn’t much left to do. In that regard, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet seemed promising, having an open world and diverging story paths.

While not as expansive as some of the other entries in the franchise, Scarlet and Violet have a lot of things to do. Some of these are your classic Pokemon traditions, while others are unique to these games. Although there may not be as many Pokemon available as other games, there are still tons of things to do after clearing the credits.

Updated October 9, 2024, by Andrew Scariati: If you’re struggling to figure out what to do after you beat Pokemon Violet and Scarlet, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve updated our list with more fun activities, including the DLCs if you’re looking for a substantial chunk of content to enjoy after the main story.

15 Complete The Pokedex

We’ve all done it, or have fantasized about doing it. Regardless, completing the Pokedex is a tradition of the franchise at this point. Luckily, Scarlet and Violet are among the best games to do so, due to the open-world nature of the games.

This is the first task you should complete
after the story if you have the patience. You’ll be awarded the Shiny Charm, which will permanently increase your chance of receiving a shiny.

The ability to see Pokemon roaming in the open world makes this task easier since you don’t have to run through patches of grass, hoping to get a random encounter with the Pokemon you’re searching for. Plus, the smaller Pokedex size makes this task a bit easier, as you only have to collect 400 Pokemon.

14 Return To Area Zero And Catch The Cover Legendary

Koraidon and Miraidon are unique legendaries, sticking with you from the beginning and serving as your trusty steed. After you beat the game, you can finally use their Battle Form and use them in battle. However, as they’re still your way of getting around, you can’t put them in the PC or ride on them in their Battle Form.

Luckily, you can revisit Area Zero after beating the game, where you’ll encounter a second Koraidon or Miraidon, depending on your version. You can catch it and use it just like a regular Pokemon, or trade it to another player in the opposite game for their cover Legendary.

13 Complete Every Academy Class

The Naranja and Uva Academies in Scarlet and Violet are often overlooked aspects of the games, but they can provide some unique rewards if you know where to look. There are several different subjects you can study at the Academy, each taught by a different character that you can learn more about as the lessons progress.

By completing all the Acadamy Classes, you can befriend the teachers of the school, learn about key mechanics and features of the game, and even score some unique items. If you’ve run out of other things to do in Scarlet and Violet, don’t forget about school!

12 Gym Rematches

This feature has been included in many games in the series, especially the more recent entries. Fortunately, Scarlet and Violet follow this trend, allowing you to return to the previously defeated Gym Leaders and rematch them, this time battling them at their full strength.

Luckily, this time around, you can skip the Gym puzzles, and get straight to the Gym fight. Each leader has an expanded team with new Pokemon at higher levels, so prepare accordingly with your strongest team.

11 Academy Ace Tournament

Pokemon games sometimes have an endless battle facility that you can enter after the main game is completed. Unfortunately, this is missing from Scarlet and Violet, which instead have the Academy Ace Tournament.

This is an elimination tournament
you can attend after beating the main game organized by Director Clavell.

In this tournament, your goal is to defeat four trainers from around the region, selected from a pool of thirteen. While it doesn’t hold a candle to the battle facilities of past games, the tournament is a fun way to test your team against higher-level opponents. The team compositions in the tournament are decent, and the levels are high enough to provide somewhat of a challenge.

10 Find And Catch The Treasures Of Ruin Quartet

As with any Pokemon game, there are lots of Legendary Pokemon to encounter and secrets to unfold in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. A set of legendaries come in the form of the Ruin Quartet. These four Pokemon are very interesting Pokemon with amazing stats and incredible signature abilities, so they’re definitely worth catching.

Wo-Chien, Chien-Pao, Ting-Lu, and Chi-Yu are all sealed behind vaults too, for unknown reasons. That means you’re going to have to collect stakes to even encounter them in the first place.

Be sure to read their Pokedex entries for some sad stories about their origins too.

9 Hunt Shinies

Another thing that fans have been very passionate about is finding and catching shinies. For the uninitiated, shiny Pokemon are slightly differently colored than their base form, such as the iconic red Gyarados. However, shinies are incredibly rare, so if you plan on hunting for one, be ready to sink in quite a bit of time.

Hunting shinies is a job best saved as a background activity, something you’ll passively do while listening to an audiobook or watching a TV series. The grind is definitely worth it in the end though, with how great the reward is.

8 Collect All Gimmighoul Coins

Game Freak did their best to implement some open-world design philosophies from the genre. That entails tons of collectibles. Gimmighoul coins can be found all around Paldea, and once you have 999 coins, you can evolve your Gimmighoul into Gholdengo.

There are a few ways to collect these coins. You can catch or defeat Gimmighoul in the wild, find roaming Gimmighoul that don’t fight, get a donation from a janitor and check sparkling spots around the world. Collecting 999 coins will take some time, but it’s worth it for the golden surfer.

7 Learn Every Sandwich Recipe

Sandwiches are a key feature of Scarlet and Violet, allowing you to craft food that provides powerful buffs when exploring. Using sandwiches, you can increase your chance of finding certain types of Pokemon, boost the experience your party earns, and even make Shinies more likely to appear.

To utilize all these benefits, learning all the sandwich recipes should be
your first step.

Stop by each of Paldea’s ingredient stores, stock up on supplies, and start cooking, because learning all 151 recipes is sure to take some time.

6 Challenge Tera Raids

Throughout your journey through the Paldea region, you will encounter Tera Raids, in which you can find Pokemon with Tera Types that are different from their normal types. Pokemon with useful Tera types can be great for some battles, but that’s not the only reward you can earn here.

You’ll also get tons of useful items like
EXP candies,
food ingredients, and
Bottle Caps.

Six-star Tera Raids are pretty hard to complete on your own, so you’ll have to prepare a variety of different Pokemon to tackle these raids. Plus, event Tera Raids occasionally make an appearance, where exclusive Pokemon can be challenged and captured. These battles will take a bunch of planning to beat, offering one of the most involved endgame activities in Scarlet and Violet.

5 Play The DLCs

While there’s no disputing that the Scarlet and Violet generation had a fair share of issues, the DLC bundle including The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk at least offers you new areas to explore and additional Pokemon to catch, which is why we’re here, after all.

The DLCs don’t fix the issues, and hinder the game’s performance, but the stories are cute enough to enjoy at face value, even if the Legendary Pokemon included are far from the best.

Putting aside the flaws for a moment, Scarlet & Violet’s DLCs are still enjoyable if you’re looking for more content and some quality-of-life improvements to help you grind for rare materials. Plus we finally get an answer about what’s waiting deep inside Area Zero.

4 Dip Your Toes Into Competitive Battling

Now that you’ve beaten the game, completed the Pokedex, and mastered all the mechanics there are, the game is completely done, right? Well, that’s where ranked battles and competitive Pokemon come into play.

While leagues are more complicated than the single-player adventure, and sometimes much more frustrating, exploring the competitive side of the game is a way to enjoy the game endlessly. This might be intimidating to newcomers, but getting better at team building and predictions is extremely rewarding.

3 Complete A Living Pokedex

So you’ve completed your Pokedex, now what? If you want to take on the ultimate Pokemon collecting challenge, consider striving for a complete living Pokedex. A living Pokedex means you own in your box one of every single Pokemon in the game, from Sprigatito to Miraidon, and every form and gender difference in between.

Owning a living Pokedex is a difficult undertaking, and will put your collecting skills to the test. Still, if you’re up for it, it can be incredibly satisfying to watch your boxes slowly fill up with every Pokemon in the game.

2 Try Nuzlocking On Another Save

If competitive Pokemon is not your cup of tea, you can always make the game more challenging on your own. The Nuzlocke Challenge is a set of self-imposed rules to make the game more exciting. The basic rules of the challenge are that any fainted Pokemon is considered dead and cannot be used, and you can only catch the first Pokemon you encounter in each area.

Scarlet and Violet being an open-world game makes these rules a bit janky, but there are tons of variants you can find online to test your battling prowess. If the game starts feeling boring or repetitive at any point, Nuzlockes are a great way to spice things up.

1 Transfer Pokemon With Pokemon Home

With the version 3.0.0 update to Pokemon Home, functionality has been added with Scarlet and Violet. This means that any Pokemon you have transferred into Home can now move to Scarlet and Violet, as long as they are compatible.

While not every Pokemon to exist is transferable, a great number of fan favorites, like starters from the Galar region and Hisuian forms, are compatible. These Pokemon open a whole new realm for team building and Tera Raids and even encourage you to play other games like Sword and Shield or Legends Arceus to collect ’em all.