Where to Get the Linking Cord in Pokémon Legends: Arceus

You kids these days have it easy; you can trade Pokémon anytime and anywhere as long as you’ve got an internet connection. Back in the olden days, you and your friend had to stand right next to each other and connect your Game Boys with a flimsy link cable. You had to keep absolutely still during trades so as not to jostle the cable and give your game cartridge a bad case of MissingNo. That link cable is a veritable relic of gaming history, which is why it’s kind of fitting that it shows up in the distant past in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Here’s where to get the Linking Cord in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

The Linking Cord is a special item you can purchase from the Item Exchange stand in Jubilife Village. It’s basically just a real-life link cable tied into a shape you really shouldn’t tie a link cable into, but in-game, it serves an incredibly helpful purpose: offline trade evolutions. You know how some Pokémon can only reach their final evolutions if you trade them with another Trainer? You can still do that in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but if you don’t have any friends online at the moment, you can use the Linking Cord like an evolutionary stone to make those particular Pokémon evolve on their own, no trade necessary.

Where to Get the Linking Cord in Pokémon Legends: Arceus

To get the Linking Cord in Pokémon Legends: Arceus

1. Find Lost Satchels in the wild to earn Merit Points
2. Earn 1,000 Merit Points
3. Buy the Linking Cord from the exchange stand in Jubilife Village

The only place you can get a Linking Cord is from the item exchange stand in Jubilife Village. It’s on your right after you leave the Galaxy Team building, with a long yellow banner next to it. To purchase the Linking Cord, you’ll need 1,000 Merit Points, a separate currency from the regular money.

Merit Points are earned by recovering Lost Satchels, Trainer packs that have been lost out in the wild. These are the actual item bags dropped by real players playing the game around the world when they black out in the wilderness; if you find the place where they fell, you can pick up their Satchel and return it to the village. This will reward you with 50-100 Merit Points, depending on how much stuff the Satchel had in it, and will also return the Satchel’s contents to the player who lost it. You can check which Satchels have been misplaced in areas you’ve visited by visiting the Lost and Found section of your in-game menu.

Once you find enough Satchels to earn 1,000 points, you can trade them in for the Linking Cord at the item exchange stand, then simply use it from your inventory on any Pokémon that would normally evolve with a trade.