The full 2026 Worlds soundtrack is out, and "Ichiban" is the new theme song

The official Pokemon channel has posted the whole soundtrack for the 2026 Pokemon World Championships as one video. Four songs, back to back, free to play. It is above.

Here is what is on it, in the order the official video lists them:

Three of the four also went up as their own videos, so you can pick one out without scrubbing through the full run.

"Ichiban" is the official theme

The Pokemon Company calls "Ichiban" the new official theme song of the World Championships. That is the one you should expect to hear most: theme songs are what play over the opening of a broadcast and behind the recap reels between rounds.

The word "ichiban" is Japanese for "number one". For a tournament that ends with one player left standing in each division, that is about as on-the-nose as a title gets, and it fits a series that has always kept one foot in Japan.

"Here We Go Again" is the other one worth knowing about. The official description says it celebrates the World Championships coming back to San Francisco after ten years. Worlds moves city to city every year, so a return trip after a decade is a real anniversary for anyone who was in the room the first time. It is sung by NateWantsToBattle, a musician who built an audience making songs about games.

Loren Allred sings on two tracks, "Champions" and "Love Of The Game". "Champions" came out earlier and has been up for a while. The other three are new this week.

Why a tournament gets its own record

A soundtrack for a card and video game tournament sounds odd until you watch one. Worlds is a broadcast now. It has stage lighting, camera cuts, walk-on music for finalists and long stretches of downtime between matches that somebody has to fill.

Music is the cheapest way to make a room of people playing quietly feel like an event. Every big sports league and esports league does the same thing. The Pokemon Company doing it two weeks ahead of the tournament also gives fans something to share while they wait, which is the point of releasing it now rather than on the day.

What this tells you about the timing

The 2026 Pokemon World Championships run August 28 to 30 in San Francisco. A finished soundtrack landing on August 14 is the usual sign that the promotional run has started. Trailers, schedules and stream details tend to follow in the same two-week window.

Nothing in these videos changes the schedule or adds a new detail about the tournament itself. If you want the times, the finals order and how to watch each day, that is all in our Worlds guide, which we keep updated as things are confirmed.

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• How to watch the 2026 Pokemon World Championships
• Pokemon videos