Pokemon Unbound doesn’t give you a Fire, Water, or Grass type to start your save file. Instead, your rival opens a crate at Shadow Base and you’re choosing between three pseudo-legendaries: Gible, Beldum, and Larvitar. All three are received at Level 10, all three evolve into genuinely strong Pokemon, and none of them is a trap pick.
If you just want an answer: Gible is the safest overall recommendation for most players. It’s fast, it hits hard from both its typing and its early movepool, and its final form doesn’t need a Mega Stone to carry a team. But “safest” isn’t the same as “only good option” — Beldum and Larvitar both have real cases for players who want something different out of a first playthrough, and the gap between all three is smaller than a lot of quick-answer guides make it sound.
Quick recommendation: Gible is the safest pick for most players, thanks to its Speed, consistent offense, and no Mega Stone requirement. Beldum and Larvitar are both genuinely viable too — the breakdown below covers why.
Pokemon Unbound Starters at a Glance
Starting level: All three starters — Gible, Beldum, and Larvitar — are received at Level 10.
| Starter | Typing | Abilities | Evolution | Main Strength | Main Drawback | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gible | Dragon/Ground | Sand Veil, Rough Skin | Gabite (Lv.24) → Garchomp (Lv.48) | Speed, offensive consistency, no Mega Stone needed | 4x weak to Ice | Players who want a strong, low-maintenance carry |
| Beldum | Steel/Psychic | Clear Body, Light Metal | Metang (Lv.20) → Metagross (Lv.45) | Defensive typing, earliest evolutions | Lowest Speed of the three | Players who want durability and don’t mind a slower attacker |
| Larvitar | Rock/Ground | Guts, Sand Veil | Pupitar (Lv.30) → Tyranitar (Lv.48) | Rock coverage from level 3, strong Tyranitar payoff | Slowest first evolution | Players building toward a Tyranitar-led team |
Which Is the Best Starter in Pokemon Unbound?
For most people asking “what’s the best Pokemon Unbound starter,” the honest answer is Gible, and the reasoning holds up: Garchomp’s Speed stat lets it act first against a lot of what Unbound throws at you, its Dragon/Ground STAB gives it broad offensive coverage, and it’s the one starter here that doesn’t need a Mega Stone to pull its full weight — which matters, because you’ll want that Mega slot free for whatever else ends up on your team.
That’s a recommendation for the median player, not a verdict that the other two are worse. Beldum’s Metagross has a defensive profile Garchomp can’t match, and it gets there faster than either of the other two lines. Larvitar becomes a Tyranitar with real long-term upside once it’s fully evolved. Picking based on “which one is objectively best” undersells how differently these three actually play.
Gible
Gible is the pick if you want a starter that’s good the moment you get it and stays good without much extra thought. By Level 10 it already knows Tackle, Sand Attack, and Metal Claw — a real attacking move, not just a stat-lowering status move — so it’s not sitting around with nothing to do in early battles.
The Dragon/Ground typing is what carries it long-term. Its Dragon/Ground STAB gives Garchomp broad offensive coverage, while Fairy-types shut down its Dragon moves and Ice remains its biggest defensive threat — so it’s a strong attacker, not a Pokemon with no real counters. It evolves to Gabite at Level 24 and to Garchomp at Level 48 — standard evolution pacing, nothing accelerated or delayed compared to the main series.
The one real hole in Gible’s kit is a 4x weakness to Ice, inherited directly from the Dragon/Ground typing. That’s not a minor footnote — an unlucky Ice-type encounter can do serious damage to an undergeared Garchomp, so it’s worth keeping some kind of answer to Ice on the rest of the team rather than assuming Gible can tank its way through everything.
Garchomp’s other selling point is efficiency: it’s strong enough on its base kit that it doesn’t need to hold a Mega Stone to stay relevant. If you’d rather spend your one Mega slot on a different Pokemon later in the run, Gible is the starter that lets you do that without giving anything up.
Beldum
Beldum correction: Current Pokemon Unbound Beldum is not locked to the classic Take Down-only movepool — it already knows Tackle, Flash, and a Steel-type move by the time you receive it at Level 10.
Beldum has a reputation problem that doesn’t actually apply here. In the Gen III main-series games, Beldum is famous for having an extremely limited level-up movepool built around Take Down. Current Pokemon Unbound changes that. By the time you receive it at Level 10, Beldum already knows Tackle, Flash, and Steelyhit (also shown in some places as Metal Bash), a Steel-type attacking move it picks up at Level 10. It isn’t stuck with one move — it has a real STAB attack from the moment it’s on your team.
What actually sets Beldum apart is its evolution schedule and its defensive typing. It reaches Metang at Level 20 and Metagross at Level 45 — the earliest first evolution and the earliest final evolution of any of the three starters. Once it’s Metagross, the Steel/Psychic typing gives it one of the best defensive profiles in the game: nine resistances and an immunity, which is a lot of matchups where Metagross simply isn’t taking meaningful damage.
The real weakness is Speed. Beldum’s base Speed is the lowest of the three starters, and that carries through its evolutions — Metagross is a durable, hard-hitting Pokemon that’s still going to get outpaced by faster threats more often than Garchomp will. That’s a genuine tradeoff, not a flaw to work around with movepool tricks: you’re picking a starter that wins fights by taking a hit and answering back, not by moving first.
Larvitar
Larvitar’s abilities: Larvitar has Guts and Sand Veil. Sand Stream doesn’t arrive until it evolves into Tyranitar.
Larvitar is the starter for players who don’t mind a slower payoff in exchange for a specific long-term plan. It knows Tackle and Leer at Level 1, then Rock Throw at Level 3 — a real Rock-type attack earlier on the level curve than either Gible’s or Beldum’s first non-Tackle attacking move. Early on, that gives it something to actually hit with right away.
Its abilities are Guts and Sand Veil — Guts rewards Larvitar for being statused (a burn or poison actually boosts its Attack rather than just hurting it), and Sand Veil raises its evasion during a sandstorm someone else has already set up. Larvitar itself isn’t a weather-setter. That ability belongs to its final form.
Evolution is where Larvitar asks for patience: Pupitar doesn’t show up until Level 30, the latest first evolution of the three starters, and Tyranitar arrives at Level 48, tying Garchomp for latest final form. That’s a longer stretch spent as a Pupitar — a Pokemon with a rough defensive typing and unremarkable stats — before the payoff arrives.
The payoff is real, though. Once Larvitar becomes Tyranitar, its ability set changes to Sand Stream and Unnerve — Sand Stream automatically summons a sandstorm on switch-in, which is a genuine team-building tool none of the other two starters offers. It’s not something you get to use for most of the game, but if you’re planning a team around sandstorm support, Tyranitar is the payoff that makes the wait worth it. Larvitar’s other real weakness is a 4x vulnerability to Fighting-type moves, worth keeping in mind when you’re rounding out the rest of your team.
Best Starter by Playstyle
| Category | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Best overall | Gible | Strongest all-around balance of Speed, offense, and no Mega Stone requirement |
| Best defensive option | Beldum | Nine resistances and an immunity as Metagross |
| Best offensive option | Gible | Best Speed tier, strong Attack, hits from two solid types |
| Fastest final evolution | Beldum | Metagross at Level 45, ahead of both other starters |
| Best weather potential | Larvitar | Tyranitar’s Sand Stream, available only after full evolution |
| Best for a first playthrough | Gible | Fewest tradeoffs to manage while learning the game |
Does Difficulty Change Which Starter You Should Pick?
Pokemon Unbound’s four difficulty modes are Vanilla, Difficult, Expert, and Insane. Moving up that list makes opposing trainers noticeably tougher — better AI decision-making, tighter level gaps between your team and theirs, and more liberal item use and stat investment on their side, especially by Expert and Insane.
There isn’t a documented, official ranking of which starter is “best” on any specific difficulty — no source lays out a rule like “pick Larvitar on Insane.” What’s fair to say as analysis, not as a stated game rule, is that Speed matters more as difficulty climbs, since faster, better-played opponents punish a slow attacker more consistently than a passive early trainer would. Beldum’s lower Speed is worth factoring into that calculation if you’re planning a Difficult-or-higher run, but that’s a piece of general team-building logic applied to Beldum’s stats — not a claim that Beldum performs badly on Insane, and not something the game states outright.
Does Your Starter Choice Affect the Rival?
Yes, in a few specific ways. Your rival’s own team is built around countering whichever starter you picked — choose Gible and the rival leans on Ice-type coverage, choose Beldum and they bring Fire and Ground answers, choose Larvitar and their team adapts accordingly. That pattern continues all the way to the Pokemon Unbound Walkthrough‘s endgame: Champion Jax’s team also adapts to whichever starter you picked, in a Double Battle.
Starter choice also affects when you get certain Mega Stones. Garchomite, Metagrossite, and Tyranitarite are all obtainable no matter what you picked, but the stone matching your chosen starter shows up earlier than the other two — reason enough on its own to check the Pokemon Unbound Pokedex if you’re planning your Mega slot around your starter from the start.
Can You Get Gible, Beldum, and Larvitar Later?
Picking one starter doesn’t permanently cut you off from the other two. All three sit together in the same crate at Shadow Base, and the two you didn’t choose become obtainable there again once you’re further into the story — specifically, after you’ve cleared the Cinder Volcano Depths story checkpoint, which opens Shadow Base up for full exploration.
Worth being upfront about: this guide isn’t going to hand you a turn-by-turn walkthrough for that pickup, because the exact sequence past the story checkpoint hasn’t been independently confirmed step-by-step. What is confirmed is the location (Shadow Base) and the story gate (after Cinder Volcano Depths). The sources checked point to that story checkpoint as the relevant gate and do not list the Elite Four or Hall of Fame as a requirement.
FAQ
What is the best starter in Pokemon Unbound?
Gible is the safest pick for most players thanks to its Speed, consistent offense, and not needing a Mega Stone to be effective — but Beldum and Larvitar are both legitimately viable depending on what you want from a team.
What are the three Pokemon Unbound starters?
Gible, Beldum, and Larvitar. All three are pseudo-legendaries, and all three are received at Level 10 from a crate at Shadow Base.
Is Gible or Beldum better in Pokemon Unbound?
Gible has the edge in Speed and offensive consistency, and it doesn’t compete for your Mega slot. Beldum has better defensive typing and evolves faster on both stages, but it’s noticeably slower on the Speed stat. Which one is “better” comes down to whether you’d rather out-speed threats or out-last them.
Is Larvitar a good starter?
Yes, particularly if you’re patient with its evolution timeline. It gets a real Rock-type attack earlier than the other two starters, and its final form, Tyranitar, brings genuine weather-support utility to a team once it evolves.
Does Beldum only know Take Down in Pokemon Unbound?
No. That’s associated with Beldum’s classic Gen III main-series movepool, but current Pokemon Unbound gives Beldum Tackle, Flash, and a Steel-type move (Steelyhit) by the time you receive it at Level 10.
Can you get all three starters in Pokemon Unbound?
Yes. Whichever one you don’t choose at the start stays available at Shadow Base and becomes obtainable again after the Cinder Volcano Depths story checkpoint. The available documentation points to a story-gated return to Shadow Base rather than a postgame-only unlock.
Does difficulty change the best starter?
Not according to anything documented in-game. Higher difficulties (Difficult, Expert, Insane) make every fight tougher across the board, and Speed matters more as a result, which is a mark against Beldum specifically — but there’s no official or confirmed ranking of starters by difficulty mode.
