Pokemon Sword and Shield definitely changes some of the conventions of the mainline Pokemon games, with one of them being the inclusion of Pokemon roaming the overworld from the Let’s Go games. This allows you to see which Pokemon you may want to battle with before fighting them, outside of the still present random encounters at times. We already discussed in another guide how to sneak up on certain Pokemon, but there is also a method of attracting their attention and this guide will explain how you can do that.
How to Whistle at Pokemon
Walking around in Pokemon Sword and Shield will lead you to plenty of wild Pokemon running around, but getting some of the harder to encounter ones may require a little help. Whistling can be a great asset for you here, as you can get their attention while you are standing still and get them to move closer to you, allowing you to quickly touch them and enter a battle.
To whistle, simply press down in the left analog stick. This means to actually press the button down like L3 on a DualShock controller and not the down direction on the stick itself. By doing this, you will whistle and exclamation or question marks will appear over the head of nearby Pokemon.
There is one other reason to use whistling in Pokemon Sword and Shield, which is to get Pokemon to scatter about when they are blocking your pathway. Let’s say you have an area of tall grass in front of you with no real way to navigate between the Pokemon without running into any of them, but you are in a hurry or have no health and can’t risk a battle, just whistle to scatter them about the area to clear a path for you to get through.
Whistling is by no means necessary for all Pokemon, but it can help you grab the attention of certain Pokemon in the wild to make encountering them easier or getting by them easier.
