Pokémon Pokopia was first conceived during the development of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet by director Shigeru Ohmori, who had been looking for new directions for the series to go in. Thinking back to his work as a map designer for Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Ohmori decided to develop a game where the player could create their own Pokémon habitats. Due to the game being a sandbox game, The Pokémon Company recommended Omega Force, a division of Koei Tecmo that had previously worked on similar titles such as Dragon Quest Builders 2 to work on the game.