Pokemon Sword & Shield: How To Increase Friendship

Increasing a Pokemon’s friendship has its share of valuable effects. In Pokemon Sword & Shield, these effects include 20 percent extra experience boosts, a chance to endure hits with one HP left, a chance to cure afflicted status conditions, higher evade chances, and higher chances to land critical hits. In other words, friendship stats can make or break battles.

Friendship is a hidden stat in Pokemon Sword & Shield that can only be checked by the Friendship Checker in Hammerlocke. At the highest friendship, the NPC will say “You’re best buddies! I can tell you’re so happy to be together!”

Outside of boosts, there are also Pokemon that only evolve with high friendship. These include Eevee (if you want an Umbreon, Sylveon, or Espeon), Pichu, Cleffa, Budew, Togepi, Type: Null, Snom, Alolan Meowth, Riolu, Woobat, Munchlax, and Azurill.

Updated on October 6, 2021, by Reyadh Rahaman: Friendship mechanics have existed in Game Freak’s franchise long before the release of Sword & Shield, as they were first introduced in the Generation 1 main series game Pokemon Yellow. Since then, the developers have added more and more to this mechanic, as they have with many others, to create an intuitive and genuinely useful reason to treat one’s partners better.

This canon beneficial boost for the friendship mechanic gives great incentive for players to handle their pocket monsters like how they would pets in real life; an awesome factor for immersion as well as for gameplay. To fully grasp the evolution of friendship in the main series Pokemon games, it could be interesting to take a look at the changes made throughout the generations.

Feed Them Certain Berries

There are six berries in all that can raise a Pokemon’s friendship: Qualot, Tamato, Pomeg, Grepa, Hondew, and Kelpsy berries.

Berries are easy to acquire in Sword and Shield. They can be collected from various trees and they respawn after a day has passed. When shaking the trees, a Pokemon will eventually pop out to battle. To avoid that, pay attention to how much the tree is shaking. If it shakes fast, then you can stop harvesting. This is so you don’t lose any berries, as some disappear after the battle.

Use The Pokemon In Battle

Like in real life, spending time together is a great way to boost friendship. Doing that with Pokemon in Sword and Shield is no different. If the Pokemon is a favorite to use, this method is easy. Make it the first Pokemon in your party. Every battle will make it friendlier towards you.

Increasing friendship by only this method will take a patient player though. Battles are a very slow way to raise friendship.

Give A Pokemon A Soothe Bell

There are items Pokemon can hold to increase their friendliness. An item in Sword and Shield that does this is the Soothe Bell.

The Soothe Bell can be obtained in Hammerlocke, in the building across from the Pokemon Center. An NPC woman with blonde hair will give the item to the player. Conveniently, Hammerlocke is also where the player can find the boy that reveals the level of friendship the first Pokemon in the party is at.

Catch Pokemon With A Friend Or Luxury Ball

Some Pokeballs can do some of the work for the player. These include Friendship and Luxury Balls. Friendship balls have no increased catch rate, but give the Pokemon caught friendship points upon capture. They can be obtained in Wyndon Station and Turfield. They can also be made with the Cram-o-Matic in the Isle of Armor DLC.

Luxury balls can also be obtained at the Wyndon Station. Another option is to visit the various Wyatt Traders to see what they have in stock every day. They sometimes sell these Pokeballs.

Keep Them In Your Party

This is easy, as it can work out no matter how weak or strong the Pokemon is. If it is strong, it can hold its own in battle. If it is weak, then it can easily be kept out of harm’s way in the back of the party. However, this would be a very slow friendship-making process if the player only uses this method.

This method should be done in combination with others, like having the Pokemon also hold a Soothe Bell and feed it friendship-boosting berries.

Do Not Trade And Trade It Back

A common tactic for gamer friends trying to complete their Pokedex is to trade Pokemon. Oftentimes, there is a double trade so that each player gets the Pokedex data and then returns the Pokemon to the owner.

This can be trouble for someone in the midst of raising Pokemon friendship. The Pokemon’s friendship stat will reset to zero upon this trading method. It could undo some hard work on the players’ part.

Feed Them Curry

Every action that has to do with Pokemon Camp is the best way to raise friendship quickly. Curry is one such Pokemon Camp activity. Not only will it heal Pokemon without needing a Pokemon Center, but it will also increase their friendship.

The better the curry, the better the friendship stat boost. To make the best curry, use rare berries, don’t spill while stirring, and fan the curry flames without burning the meal.

Don’t Give Them Bitter Items

There are useful items that can heal a Pokemon but at the cost of friendship. These items include energy roots, heal powders, revival herbs, and energy powders.

Luckily, that is only four items to avoid. Most are used for healing, which can be done with curry instead. Do not confuse bitter items with certain berries or curry unless one wants to lose some friendship with a Pokemon.

Play With Them In Pokemon Camp

Besides curry, it is best to play and chat with Pokemon in Pokemon Camp to increase friendship. This is much quicker than battle and does not risk them fainting and losing friendship points.

So when making curry, combine the time in Pokemon Camp with spending time with the Pokemon. Throw some balls to play catch with them, chat with them, and then make some of the best curries for them to enjoy.

Don’t Let The Pokemon Faint In Battle

Fainting makes a Pokemon lose friendship. If it is weak, keep it away from battles. While battles can increase friendship, that only counts if the battles have the Pokemon and player winning.

Luckily, if the Pokemon faints once, it is no big deal because a quick playtime and curry in Pokemon Camp can set them back up to where they were. Just make sure it is not constantly getting beaten.

Friendship Mechanics Throughout The Generations Of Main Series Pokemon Games

Friendship In Generation 1 Pokemon Games

Technically, the only Generation 1 game that possessed friendship mechanics was Pokemon Yellow, as Pokemon Red & Blue did not. This mechanic was also exclusive to only the player’s starting Pikachu, however, this does not extend to a Raichu that evolves from this Pikachu. Furthermore, any Pikachu that is caught by the trainer (but not those traded to them) will be treated by the game’s engine as a starting Pikachu, which can make things a bit confusing.

Friendship In Generation 2 Pokemon Games

This is the generation where friendship mechanics truly took off, as they were no longer restricted to a single species thanks to the added memory capabilities gained through increasingly better technology. All Pokemon now have a base of 70 friendship when caught by normal means, though, those caught with a Friend Ball will have this boosted to 200 out of the maximum value of 255.

Friendship In Generation 3 Pokemon Games

The friendship mechanics of this era were mostly the same as in Generation 2, however, there were a few things added to the games that helped players increase the friendship levels of their Pokemon. In addition to the usual methods (leveling up, winning battles, feeding Pokemon vitamins, etc.), players in FireRed & LeafGreen could also visit Daisy Oak in Pallet Town to have her increase a Pokemon’s friendship once for every 512 steps taken in-game.

Friendship In Generation 4 Pokemon Games

In this generation, players gained the ability to check a Pokemon’s friendship level by using their Poketch. A Pokemon that has max friendship will display a couple of little hearts around them on the Poketch Friendship Checker.

Friendship In Generation 5 Pokemon Games

Through the Entralink function unique to this generation, trainers could head to the center of the Unova region to perform a lot of interesting feats, however, the only one that pertains to friendship is acquiring Pass Powers. There are many Pass Powers, but players can pick up one called Befriending Power to increase the friendship of one’s Pokemon.

Friendship In Generation 6 Pokemon Games

Things were pretty much the same for friendship mechanics as they were in Generation 5.

Friendship In Generation 7 Pokemon Games

Same as with the Generation 6 games; friendship mechanics stayed mostly the same.

Friendship In Generation 8 Pokemon Games

This is when the developers decided to do something new with friendship by adding Pokemon Camp as well as the many features within which can help trainers grow closer to their Pokemon pals.

Pokemon Sword & Shield are available on Nintendo Switch.

MORE: Pokemon Sword & Shield: Fan Challenges You Can Do To Make The Game Harder