It’s Pokémon 25th birthday tomorrow (27 Feb)! People all over the world are turning to Twitch to find new ways to celebrate the iconic franchise online and relive some serious nostalgic ‘90s feels.

From watching their favourite streamers ‘catch em all’ via Pokémon Go to watching in anticipation as streamers slowly open their prized packs of Pokémon cards, please see below for a list of ways in which Twitch has seen users tune into the world’s largest live-streaming service to connect with other like-minded fans and share in the joy of the pocket monster universe.

Traversing the Pokémon universe with Pokémon Go

Following the immense popularity of Pokémon Go a few summers ago, Twitch streamers from all over the world are now playing the game live to their fans, creating new ways for the Pokémon community to engage and interact with each other. Popular Pokémon Go enthusiast and Australian streamer FleeceKing made headlines earlier this year, for example, after he became the first trainer in the world to reach level 50 following a marathon session in which he reached the necessary XP after throwing a perfect curved Excellent throw to catch a wild Charmander.

Going ‘old skool’ with some Pokémon card pack reveals

Twitch has experienced a surge in streamers and viewers participating in the unboxing of Pokémon cards, with streamers creating moments of intense anticipation as they use multiple cameras to zoom in on cards, and carefully sift through one by one. German streamer Maximilian “Trymacs” Alexander Curt Stemmler amassed 3.31 million hours watched this week alone of his streams unboxing the cards whilst this tweet catches the moment of crowd euphoria when US streamer Ludwig Ahgren pulled a holographic Dragonite from the pack during a stream shortly before Christmas.

Controlling the iconic Twitch bot with Twitch Plays Pokémon

The iconic Twitch event stream Twitch Plays Pokemon began seven years ago, and is still played by hundreds of people to this day. Inspiring an entire generation of Pokémon fans by creating new and exciting ways to interact that had never been done before, the innovative concept originally involved a Twitch bot playing and completing the iconic original 1996 game Pokémon Red, controlled entirely by viewers who order the bot around by typing commands in the live chat. So popular was the game when it launched, that Twitch Plays Pokémon still holds the Guinness World Record for having the “most participants on a single-player online video game” at over 1.1 million.

Watching the official Pokémon channel on Twitch

The official Pokémon Twitch channel is incredibly popular on Twitch, boasting a current 393k followers. Recently the channel announced its new plan to run daily blocks of content, including announcing via Twitter that it will be uploading weekly videos via Twitch that will help users navigate and learn how to participate in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Escaping reality for an afternoon with some Pokémon-inspired cosplay

Users on Twitch have also been dressing up as their favourite Pokémon character, finding new and creative ways to immerse themselves in the Pokémon world. Just this week, for example, streamer Summoner_Red played the popular game Among Us with other streamers in Pokémon Cosplay. This, of course, is no new trend: back in 2019, for example, Twitch streamer ‘Pokimane’ made headlines after she dressed up as Pokémon character Serena at TwitchCon US in San Diego.