In Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, you no longer recruit a Pokémon by hoping it joins the team after a battle. Everything goes through the Connection Orb, a map of the relationships between the game’s 720 Pokémon. This page explains how it works, the ways to recruit, the Expedition Society ranks and the traveling Pokémon.

All legendary Pokémon can be recruited, through the Connection Orb.

The connection map

Ampharos, leader of the Expedition Society, gives you your first Connection Orb in Lively Town. The orb displays a web that grows as you meet more Pokémon. Every Pokémon you form a bond with appears on it, along with its own relationships. A new connection often makes a mission appear, which itself leads to other Pokémon. The map even links teams from previous games, such as that of Alakazam, Charizard and Tyranitar from Rescue Team.

Ampharos.
Alakazam.
Charizard.

A search function, by name, color or type, lets you find a Pokémon. It also shows whether a mission linked to it remains.

Ways to recruit

  • Complete a mission for a Pokémon, from the world map or the connection map.
  • Answer an exclamation mark in a town or building: the Pokémon simply joins the team.
  • Make a connection with a Pokémon linked to one of your members.
  • Move up in rank with the Expedition Society: each rank brings recruits.
  • Help Pokémon met at random in dungeons.

Expedition Society ranks

Missions earn exploration points. Once the threshold is reached, go back to HQ in Lively Town and consult the central orb to change rank. According to our original guide, you need 200 points for the first tier and 10,000 for the highest. Each rank unlocks recruits, dungeons (often a legendary Pokémon’s), more bag space and extra saved teams. The full table, rank by rank, is in Moving Up in Rank.

Traveling Pokémon

Some Pokémon can’t be recruited through missions or ranks: they are travelers, roaming the dungeons. A message warns you when one of them is on the floor. Heatran is the best-known example. Depending on the Pokémon, three situations are possible:

Heatran.
  • it heals your team and the bond forms immediately;
  • it is asleep in a room: give it an Apple to wake it up and form the bond;
  • it attacks, then flees toward the stairs: you must defeat it before it reaches them.

When you have no mission in progress, the connection map shows three travelers at a time and the dungeons where they are. The list is in our original guide Traveling Pokémon.

Legendary Pokémon

The game lets you recruit all the legendary and Mythical Pokémon it features, from Articuno to Hoopa. Some are recruited at the end of a dungeon from a given rank, others through a Connection Orb mission or a connection with another legendary Pokémon. Mew joins the team after the epilogue. Arceus requires you to have recruited the other 719 Pokémon. Hoopa, lastly, goes through the Magic Lamp. The conditions for each are in our original guides Legendary Pokémon and Hoopa and the Magic Lamp.

Articuno.
Hoopa.
Mew.

Evolution

Recruited Pokémon can only evolve once the story is finished, with Xerneas and the Tree of Life, reached via Lapras. Level-based evolutions require the usual level from the main games; the others have no condition. Some Pokémon tied to the story cannot evolve. See Evolution.

Xerneas.