Minecraft is one of the most popular video games of all time. Over the years, popular video games have, in turn, led to the creation of many mods that subsequently become popular either in their own right or even in standalone games. The most prominent examples of this phenomenon are games like Counter-Strike and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota2). The most notable samples of this phenomenon are games like Counter-Strike and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota2). Counter-Strike was a mod for Half-Life, and the original Dota 3 was a mod for the legendary Warcraft III.
Both these mods and their development team were commissioned by Valve and now serve as flagship titles for the video game giant. Minecraft has also worked in line with this trend, resulting in a number of successful mods, including the subject of today’s article, Pixelmon. In this article, I will present the top five best Pixelmon server options for you.
But before we get into it, let’s quickly cover what Pixelmon Minecraft is and why it’s so popular. Stay tuned to our list of the best Pixelmon servers and Pixelmon Minecraft server ips for a bonus tip on self-hosting your own Pixelmon server. Let’s go.
What is Pixelmon?
Pixelmon is an enhanced gameplay overhaul mod released for Minecraft. Originally released in 2013, it has since become one of the most popular total gameplay overhaul mods for the legendary video game. As a mod, Pixelmon adds a large number of mob entities to the Minecraft game. As the mod’s name suggests, these mobs are from the extremely popular Pokemon universe. The best way to describe the mod’s gameplay experience is as an open-world Pokemon game.
The different classes of Pokemon are distributed across the various biomes that Minecraft offers based on their class. The player can explore the world and battle other players and more importantly, Pokemon mobs that can be defeated and captured in the iconic Pokeball. The captured Pokemon can then be released from the Pokeball to aid the player in battle.
Overall, it’s not hard to see why the mod has proven such a huge success. While several games based on the Pokemon universe have been released to date, there has never been a true Pokemon open-world experience, and Pixelmon Minecraft offers exactly that.
Why Pixelmon is popular?
At Pixelmon’s peak, Pixelmon had more than 15000 active concurrent players, with famous servers having about 500 players per server. That number easily goes toe-to-toe with Steam’s mid-level multiplayer games. But why is Pixelmon so popular? The answer is simple. Pokémon is one of the most popular anime series and franchise in history.
At the same time, Minecraft represents a revolutionary video game that has its own huge player base. The catch here is, the Minecraft player base is mostly likely the same demographic that watched Pokemon as kids.
Naturally, Minecraft Pixelmon will succeed from the destination. But the overlap between these two famous franchises isn’t what makes Pixelmon so exciting. The mod is really well designed and well made. It offers an incredible multiplayer experience, with tons of added content and a great leveling system and item hierarchy.
Pixelmon Shut Down: The End of the Open-World Pokemon Experience?
Despite its huge popularity and large active player base, the mod developed for Minecraft was discontinued in mid-2017. The end of active development and support for the mod was announced in its official sub-section on the Minecraft forums. The news came as a shock as the mod was able to spread far and wide with many dedicated servers and even had a successful monetization strategy.
It was soon revealed that the main reason behind the closure of the mod was that the Pokemon Company had issued a cease and desist order on the mod based on what was interpreted as copyright infringement. Rather than risk getting into a legal dispute with a multi-million dollar company, the developers shut the mod down.
However, the good news is that since official development has stopped since 2017, unofficial development and fork projects for Pixelmon Minecraft abound. The mode itself has reached a reasonable level of development; This means that the servers that run the last official release of the mod, unlike the fork projects, provide a really fun open-world Pokemon experience.
Best Pixelmon Servers
Finally, it’s time to rank the five best Pixelmon server cases. Generally, three metrics are used to determine the quality Pixelmon Minecraft server. These are an active contemporary player base, paid features, and connectivity benefits. The best Pixelmon server options ranked in this section are in no particular order and you can use any of them knowing that you will enjoy a great multiplayer gameplay experience.
SoulPixel Network
Its hosted in Spain, It provides very good connectivity and ping to players in Europe Area, the Middle East, and North Africa. Players on the East Coast of North America also get a decent ping. SoulPixel Pixelmon doesn’t add too much to the default version of Minecraft. However, it offers gameplay in three distinct categories of Silver, Gold and Showdown. However, note that the server is operated in Spanish. So it’s not the best option for Anglophone gamers. Nevertheless, the excellent performance and its good moderation of the server make it the best Pixelmon server for the Spanish-speaking world.
The SoulPixel server is accessible through the following address: mc.soulpixel.es. It doesn’t need additional resource downloads except for the matching version of Pixelmon Minecraft.
Pokeland
Our first entry on the list of the best Minecraft Pixelmon server options is the aptly named Pokeland. PokeLand is mainly notable because it takes the vanilla experience provided by Pixelmon and takes it to a whole new level by adding its own innovative features. It adds its own custom Pokemon world, filled with default mobs from Pixelmon World, as well as additional mobs added by the server itself. Can’t find your favorite Pokemon? No problem. The server has its own shop where you can buy any pokemon you like, as well as upgrade your existing pokemon.
The Pokeland server is accessible at mc.pokeland.world. Note that you need to download its own Pixelmon Modpack.
Pixelmon Realms
Named after the official Minecraft Realms to reflect the immersive experience it offers, Pixelmon Realms is definitely one of the best Minecraft Pixelmon server options. It offers a huge world with different categories, each with its own special Pokemon. It has a list of over 800 interactable Pokemon. There are also several boss Pokemon around the map that can only be acquired by defeating battles.
The server also offers quests and a ton of new recipes that you can use to craft unique items for unique uses.
The Pixelmon Realms server is accessible at: play.pixelmonrealms.com. It also requires a modpack to download.
Pixelmon to Go
Pixelmon to go is another server where Pixelmon has no additional needs to play other than configuring the matching version of Minecraft. Once done, you’ll immediately be deployed into a massive world featuring all the Pokemon mobs featured in the original release, as well as additional game modes and unique open-world quests.
Pixelmon to Go is specifically designed to make Pixelmon simply accessible without needing additional server-specific downloads and version configurations. This is the server with the nearest experience to the original Pixelmon mod. Last but not the least, it offers a great connectivity experience to most regions of the world and also has a custom UI and its own launcher. Pixelmon To Go can be accessed at: pixelmontogo.com
Complex Gaming
Complex goes beyond just Pixelmon Minecraft servers. It is a collection of servers that host various popular mods for games including Minecraft and Pixelmon. Complex Gaming has gained a reputation as one of the best Pixelmon servers from few years. Additionally, it’s one of the only Pixelmon servers that lets you play Minecraft version 1.18 and later, preventing compatibility issues and constant version switching.
Switching between different game modes is a breeze, and you can switch from Pixelmon to another game mode for a good break. You’ll need Complex Gaming Pixelmon modpack and the server is reachable at hub.mc-complex.com.
Game Version in Pixelmon
One of the most important factors in playing multiplayer versions of famous mods is the issue of game versions and compatibility. Since Pixelmon has been discontinued since 2017, you need to downgrade your Minecraft version to 1.12.2. This is only if you want to use the latest official release. As you’ve already seen, many of the best Pixelmon server alternatives come with their own modpacks. These modpacks are usually changes and additional features that are attached to the original Pixelmon version. So before trying different Pixelmon server IP variations it is better to check which version of Minecraft is supported by the server.
