One Direction fans have rediscovered the band’s 2011 advertising campaign to promote the launch of Pokémon Black & White.
Pokémon Black & White launched in September 2010 for Japanese gamers before a global release in 2011. The twin games introduced 156 new ‘Mon to the series and saw players explore the New York City-inspired Unova region while having to deal with the troublesome Team Plasma. The games went on to sell more than 15.6million copies, but not without a little help from One Direction.
As part of an advertising campaign, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were photographed holding Nintendo DS consoles and the band performed live at the official launch of the game.
They also starred in a series of videos that saw the band joined by giant versions of the Gen 5 starter Pokémon backstage on the X Factor tour and performed an original Pokémon-themed song.
Now, 15 years later, One Direction fans have rediscovered the advertising campaign. “I had no idea this collab existed,” reads one viral tweet. “I was very into 1D and I asked for Pokémon Black & White for my 10th birthday and somehow I never knew about this,” replied one fan.
i had no idea this collab existed 😭 pic.twitter.com/Dn99gKtGFH
— PokeDuels (@PokeDuelsTikTok) July 23, 2025
“This collab was literally everything to me being obsessed with Pokémon (specifically gen 5) and also One Direction when I was like 12,” said one fan. “I can’t believe I live in a time where people didn’t know about the greatest collab of our generation,” said another.
However a number of gamers are shocked that the RRP of Pokémon Black & White was £29.99. “Those were the days,” wrote one fan. The latest mainline Pokémon game, Scarlet & Violet, was released in 2022 and still costs £50.
The Pokémon Company is currently celebrating the 15th anniversary of Pokémon Black & White with the Official Trading Card Game. Released earlier this month, the Black Bolt and White Flare expansions feature all 156 ‘Mon introduced in those games.
Fans were hoping remasters of those games would be announced earlier this week as part of a bumper Pokémon Presents. The stream included updates on the upcoming spin-off Legends: Z–A, new multiplayer game Champions and the second season of Netflix show Pokémon Concierge as well as the reveal of new puzzle game Friends. However the price of that family-friendly title angered a lot of players.
Earlier this week, Netflix released a clip of Liam Payne singing and dancing along to a One Direction hit with fans while filming Building The Band. The series was in post-production when Payne tragically died in October after a fatal fall from a third-floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first batch of Building The Band episodes hit streaming earlier this month, with the second half of the season released yesterday (July 23).
In other news, Microsoft has confirmed it won’t be going ahead with a planned price increase for Xbox games this holiday season.