Hardcore Soullocke

The "hardcore" ruleset from the solo Nuzlocke community, applied to a linked run. All three at once:

• Set battle style — no free switch when you knock out an opponent's Pokémon.
• No items in battle — held items are fine; using potions and revives from the bag mid-battle is not.
• Hard level caps — nothing on your team may exceed the next gym leader's strongest Pokémon. Overleveled Pokémon are benched (which in a soullocke benches their linked partner too — a uniquely painful twist).

Hardcore soullockes are dramatically harder than hardcore solo runs because sacrificing safely is nearly impossible: every sack costs the other trainer a Pokémon as well.

First-attempt-only bosses

No retrying gym leaders or Evil Team bosses after a loss "just to see the team." A whiteout is a whiteout. Groups who find full run-over rules too brutal sometimes play "a lost boss fight costs each trainer their highest level Pokémon" instead.

Clauses, and how links complicate them

Clauses that are simple in a solo Nuzlocke get interesting when two trainers' encounters are tied together:

• Dupes clause. Re-roll encounters that are dupes. The soullocke question: if it's a dupe for one trainer, do both re-roll? (Most groups: yes — the link matters more than the individual catch.)
• Shiny clause. A shiny may always be caught, dupe or not. Decide whether a shiny catch also frees the linked partner from the "first encounter only" rule, and whether shinies are death-exempt.
• Species clause. No two links may share a species across either trainer's side — pushes team variety hard in early-route regions.
• Gift & static clause. Gifts and statics count as their own linked slot: Trainer A's gift links to Trainer B's gift from the same source. Some groups ban statics entirely; others allow "catch for the Pokédex, never battle."
• Catch-up clause (mercy rule). Once per run, a trainer with no valid encounter in an area may take a solo catch that links to the partner's catch from that area. Softens the harshest soullocke rule for casual runs.

Crossover variants

Randomized soul link. The format Jaiden Animations and Alpharad made famous: run a randomizer so wild encounters (and sometimes trainers) are shuffled, then soul-link the chaos. Kills route memorization completely — nobody can plan around "Ralts is on 102." Best for experienced pairs who've memorized their favorite region.

Monotype soullocke. Each trainer picks a type and may only use Pokémon of that type. Links where either side doesn't match a trainer's type are boxed on both sides. Pick complementary types (e.g. Water + Electric) or suffer.

Egglocke / Wonderlocke soul link. Every catch is swapped for a random egg (egglocke) or wonder-traded away (wonderlocke), then linked as usual. Requires games with the right features, and a high tolerance for receiving someone's level 1 Bidoof.

Three or more trainers

Everything scales to N players — the tracker supports any number — but two rulings matter more as the group grows:

• Full-chain fate: one faint kills the entire linked chain (standard, brutal at 4+ players), vs. pairwise fate: only adjacent links die. Almost everyone plays full-chain; know what you're signing up for.
• Skipped areas multiply. With 4 trainers, the odds someone has a dupe/fled encounter on a route gets high — the dupes clause and/or a catch-up clause is strongly recommended at 3+.

Picking a variant

Rough difficulty ladder, easiest to hardest: standard with dupes clause → standard, no clauses → randomized soul link → hardcore → hardcore monotype (good luck). Whatever you pick, write the ruleset down before you start — see tips & best practices.