Pokemon Sword & Shield: How Do Fossils Work?

Most Pokemon games include fossils that you can restore into a living Pokemon, and you usually have to choose between one fossil or another. In Pokemon Sword and Shield, however, fossils work differently. You can still restore them to get a proper Pokemon, and they still count towards your Pokedex--but Sword and Shield's fossils are mix-and-match, and it can get kind of weird.

There are four fossils in total and four fossil Pokemon to restore. While you can get all four fossils in your game, based on a few GameSpot staff playthroughs, each version has a set of fossils that are far more common. Sword has Fossilized Bird and Fossilized Dino, while Shield has Fossilized Fish and Fossilized Drake. Only one of us (so far) has gotten the other version's fossil natively in-game, and that was after finishing the story.

The Fossil Restoration specialist is found on Route 6 and is easily accessed via Flying Taxi to the Route 6 fast-travel point. If you talk to her, she'll ask you for two fossils, which she'll then put together to create a freaky chimera of a Pokemon. Below are the combinations and which Pokemon you get from them.

Fossil Combinations:

• Fossilized Bird + Fossilized Drake = Dracozolt
• Fossilized Bird + Fossilized Dino = Arctozolt
• Fossilized Fish + Fossilized Drake = Dracovish
• Fossilized Fish + Fossilized Dino = Arctovish

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You're able to get Arctozolt easily in Sword, while Shield players can get Dracovish right off the bat. For Dracozolt and Arctovish, you'll likely need to trade some Pokemon that are holding the necessary fossils in order to complete your collection. You can find additional fossils on the ground in the Dusty Bowl section of the Wild Area, and the Digging Duo near the Wild Area nursery will sometimes dig up fossils--you can spend some Watts with each of them once per day to get a variety of treasures.

For more Pokemon help, check out our guides to evolving a variety of tricky Pokemon, including Milcery and Applin. We also have a feature laying out where you can find certain cool, rare, and powerful Pokemon in the games.