How to evolve Inkay into Malamar in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

The Indigo Disk, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s second DLC, brings back Inkay and its funky evolution method. To evolve Inkay into Malamar, you’ll need to hold your Nintendo Switch upside down, which should be simple, but there are some other issues you may run into while trying it out yourself.

Below, we detail where to find a Inkay and how to evolve it into Malamar in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Where to find Inkay in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

You can find Inkay in the waters in the following areas:

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

There’s a bunch of them swimming around. It’s actually kind of hard to get around this area without running into one.

How to evolve Inkay into Malamar in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

To evolve Inkay into Malamar, your Inkay has to be at least level 30 and, while it levels, you have to be holding your Nintendo Switch console upside down. Yep, you need to take it out of the dock. You can level it from battling or from using Rare Candy, but you just need to make sure your Switch is inverted when it levels.

If the method isn’t working for you, troubleshoot by ensuring you’re following these guidelines:

• You are holding your Nintendo Switch, with Joy-Cons inserted, upside down.
• You have no other controllers (like a Pro Controller) connected to it.

Some players have reported that they are striking out when using third-party Joy-Cons, but we can’t confirm this at the moment.