It’s April Fools’ Day yet again, so social media is rife with fake announcements and gags to celebrate. The video game industry also loves making these jokes, and while not all of them land well, one of the funniest this year comes from The Pokémon Company and Pokémon Sleep.
It’s a video for a Pokémon Sleep World Champions Tournament, where multiple people compete to become a Pokémon Sleep champion by falling asleep as fast as possible and getting a good artistry score for how well they snooze. It’s a hilarious riff on how The Pokémon Company holds Pokémon World Championships for all its games every year and how that wouldn’t quite make sense for Pokémon Sleep.
Pokémon Sleep itself is not an April Fools’ Day joke. It was released for iOS and Android in July 2023 and is a sleep-tracking app themed around the popular RPG franchise. People using the app can fall into different sleep types and accrue a sleep score, which helps determine which Pokémon visit them during their slumber. Pokémon Sleep adds some extra flair to the normal sleep-tracking app formula but obviously isn’t meant to be played competitively like it is in this funny April Fools’ Day joke.
It does make sense that The Pokémon Company did something for April Fools’ Day this year, as the franchise has a long history with this day. Did you know that the idea for Pokémon Go spawned from a Google Maps April Fools’ Day gag? Maybe the Pokémon Sleep World Champions Tournament isn’t too Farfetch’d an idea after all.
