How to Breed Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

The process for breeding Pokemon has always been mysterious but fairly straightforward. You bring your eligible Pokemon to a day care, then you either bike around that day care for an undisclosed amount of time or completely forget you left those Pokemon in the day care to begin with. Either way, the process ends with an egg.

But Paldea isn’t just missing its old-school Pokemon center and department stores – it’s also missing the iconic day care center. But that doesn’t mean you can’t breed your Pokemon. You just have to be more intentional about how you do it.

How to Breed Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Breeding Pokemon has always had its nuances, and you can essentially make it as easy or complicated as you like. But to actually breed your Pokemon, one of the first things you’ll need to do is find a flat surface some place outside of a city or town.

Related: How to Auto Battle in the Water in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

But just having a picnic isn’t enough. Certain things from past games remain the same: the Pokemon you want to breed must have opposite genders and must be in the same egg groups. It doesn’t matter how nice of an Egg Power boosting sandwich you have if your Pokemon don’t meet these base requirements.

Once your table is all set up, you have a variety of things you can do with your team. You can clean them, play ball, craft a sandwich of your own, or just go idle while doing some chores or messing around on your phone. But periodically, you should check the basket on the ground beside your picnic table (not on top of the table). Eventually, an egg will pop up in the basket. In fact, you can have 10 eggs in a basket at once.