Speculation Future Pokemon Game Speculation Thread

[RileyXY1]

In terms of remakes, i think Johto is more likely than Unova at this point in time.

Hear me out

The Indigo Disk gave us a lot of Unova related content/characters, as well as the area's in Blueberry Academy, as if they want to say: We are not gonna give you Unova just yet, so you have to settle for this one.

Not only that, but a lot of Indigo Disk Pokemon can be found in Unova.

And Johto is the region we've gone the longest without seeing. We haven't been to Johto since 2009 on the original DS, and that doesn't count the VC releases which you can't buy anymore because the 3DS eShop was shut down. It's now been 15 years since we last had a new Johto game. And for reference, that's the same amount of time that passed between the releases of DP and BDSP. We're basically overdue for another Johto adventure.

 

[Daenerys]

I don't expect a Gen 9 core game this year tbh. Scarlet and Violet already have DLC, so there's no need for a new Paldea centric game. I suppose it's possible that we could get a Legends Arceus or Let's Go type game to hold us over, but even then it's not something I'd bet on.

Honestly, Game Freak should take the year off. Surely they have more than enough money and the current games are still selling well, so...

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Surely they have more than enough money

One would think, anyway............

 

[Bolt Strike]

I don't expect a Gen 9 core game this year tbh. Scarlet and Violet already have DLC, so there's no need for a new Paldea centric game. I suppose it's possible that we could get a Legends Arceus or Let's Go type game to hold us over, but even then it's not something I'd bet on.

Honestly, Game Freak should take the year off. Surely they have more than enough money and the current games are still selling well, so...

I mean, you could've said the same thing about 2022 when we just got LA in January, and yet a mere month later they announced SV for later in the year. I don't think Game Freak believes in taking the year off anymore. They haven't done so in almost a decade. Chances seem high we're getting something. They seem to always want something. And if you think Game Freak thinks they have more than enough money you don't understand business, there's no such thing as enough money to business executives as they're taught to maximize profit.

 

[Kallyle]

I mean, you could've said the same thing about 2022 when we just got LA in January, and yet a mere month later they announced SV for later in the year. I don't think Game Freak believes in taking the year off anymore. They haven't done so in almost a decade. Chances seem high we're getting something. They seem to always want something. And if you think Game Freak thinks they have more than enough money you don't understand business, there's no such thing as enough money to business executives as they're taught to maximize profit.

Unless TPC and Creatures wants to risk angering Nintendo, they’re going to have to take a break year or risk breaking consoles and the player base asking for even more refunds as a result. It’s not like they’re going to get better at optimizing any time soon with them constantly pushing the limit despite being on time crunches. Mind you, the break year might not be 2024, but they at least should take a break year in 2025.

The problem is that in its current capacity, the VCG and TCG and too a lesser extent the merch, cannot support itself longer than 3 years.

You’d normally have a point, but there’s one problem with that: if they don’t wait on releasing a full-fledged generation this time, we’ll probably get a product with a lack of optimization so bad that it’ll kill lots of Switch consoles, leading to the risk of players asking for even more refunds than with SV. The higher ups at Game Freak and Creatures might be okay with that, but Nintendo still owns a third of TPC and would likely not be okay with risking that scenario. People keep forgetting that Nintendo also has a stake in the franchise’s continued success, and they likely can only tolerate so much of the main development cycle tainting the reputation of said cash cow.

That being said, perhaps they could remedy this standard a mini-generation of sorts: a smaller scale game with only 20 new Pokémon and a shorter main campaign than the regular experience. This still generates the revenue associated with a new set of games while also stalling for the actual big titles.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Unless TPC and Creatures wants to risk angering Nintendo, they’re going to have to take a break year or risk breaking consoles and the player base asking for even more refunds as a result. It’s not like they’re going to get better at optimizing any time soon with them constantly pushing the limit despite being on time crunches. Mind you, the break year might not be 2024, but they at least should take a break year in 2025.

Nintendo's probably already angry, and yet they seem to have done little to nothing. For whatever reason, I don't think Nintendo either can or wants to intervene. At best, maybe they solve the problem by adding a third dev team and Game Freak solely focuses on the new gen games, but I don't think they want to compromise on yearly releases.

 

[Silktree]

I absolutely don't see there being two consecutive Unova releases after Indigo Disk. That part of the DLC is supposed to "replace" something Unova-related. Do we really need two games for one region again? No, and that is what Game Freak seem to have figured out. They also remember that BW are not as popular as DP.

In contrast, NSO isn't going to work for Johto. First, they really should have done it by now for Stadium's sake. The fact that they haven't implies a problem, which is likely NSO being a service. Does Game Freak view their games that way? Is it worthwhile for them? Not to mention that save slots would have to be removed, especially for Home compatibility to prevent easy clones. Now, November 2024 does mark Gold and Silver's 25th anniversary (15th for HGSS), so not being able to access that region on a modern system is not right. But you can't use NSO for a quick fix, and even the VC release of RGBY was eventually followed by LGPE.

Reminder that the Legends references in the DLC don't have anything to do with Unova. In Teal Mask, we learn that at least some Hisui Pokemon migrated to other nearby lands. In Indigo Disk, we get a prize from Perrin that has no value except as a Johto reference. This is on top of the random GS songs already added to the camera in Teal Mask.

Spoiler

Then finally, the Pecharunt video pinpoints another Japan-based land. That could be Sinjoh, which is referenced in PLA as a land (in Cogita's old verses) and could well be a biome or two in Legends Celebi.

Unova? If ILCA and Masuda want to get better reviews this time, then at the very least the BW remakes should be polished. They should make the overworld less chibi, incorporate Dream World into the actual game, and add some B2W2 elements to the post-game (possibly with the original dragon). Even Terastallization could work, unlike Dynamax. And if that isn't really enough and there's demand for Legends Unova or B2W2 remakes (really?), there's always the next generation.

 

[Kallyle]

Nintendo's probably already angry, and yet they seem to have done little to nothing. For whatever reason, I don't think Nintendo either can or wants to intervene. At best, maybe they solve the problem by adding a third dev team and Game Freak solely focuses on the new gen games, but I don't think they want to compromise on yearly releases.

Constantly cutting corners and having buggy games is probably something Nintendo is willing to overlook, as we’ve seen for a while now. Having a product that doesn’t even work and destroys a lot of consoles —consoles that belong to one of the entities who own one third of your franchise—due to refusing to give time for optimization as a result is grounds for a lawsuit. Japanese businesses are pretty cutthroat like that. Unless Game Freak and Creatures, Inc. are willing to risk lawsuits, they’re going to have to have a break year.

Will this break year be 2024? Most likely not. However, something is going to give if they keep doing what they’re doing. They’ll either take a break year sometime in the future, or they’ll destroy consoles and be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Knowing what we know right now, I fear it’ll be the latter.

 

[RileyXY1]

Constantly cutting corners and having buggy games is probably something Nintendo is willing to overlook, as we’ve seen for a while now. Having a product that doesn’t even work and destroys a lot of consoles —consoles that belong to one of the entities who own one third of your franchise—due to refusing to give time for optimization as a result is grounds for a lawsuit. Japanese businesses are pretty cutthroat like that. Unless Game Freak and Creatures, Inc. are willing to risk lawsuits, they’re going to have to have a break year.

Will this break year be 2024? Most likely not. However, something is going to give if they keep doing what they’re doing. They’ll either take a break year sometime in the future, or they’ll destroy consoles and be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Knowing what we know right now, I fear it’ll be the latter.

I'm concerned that would be the trajectory of Pokémon if they keep with the annual releases. COD can sustain this model because the games are developed by multiple studios who alternate games every year. This is not the case for Pokémon. With the sole exceptions of Colosseum, XD, and BDSP, every single main series game has been developed by a single company. SV ended up being an extremely glitchy mess with memory leaks that could wipe out years of save data in one second. If they keep this up the next mainline games could end up being so bugged they would basically be unplayable.

 

[Fireyy]

Legends arches was just the gen 4 remake. We only got bdsp because they couldn't get legends out before the holidays.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Constantly cutting corners and having buggy games is probably something Nintendo is willing to overlook, as we’ve seen for a while now. Having a product that doesn’t even work and destroys a lot of consoles —consoles that belong to one of the entities who own one third of your franchise—due to refusing to give time for optimization as a result is grounds for a lawsuit. Japanese businesses are pretty cutthroat like that. Unless Game Freak and Creatures, Inc. are willing to risk lawsuits, they’re going to have to have a break year.

Will this break year be 2024? Most likely not. However, something is going to give if they keep doing what they’re doing. They’ll either take a break year sometime in the future, or they’ll destroy consoles and be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Knowing what we know right now, I fear it’ll be the latter.

I don't necessarily agree that the games need a break year. Maybe Game Freak, but not the series. Again, I think if it's getting to that point where they have to do something or else, the solution would probably be something more like what Call of Duty does, have 3 or 4 developers trade off releasing various entries. So maybe a new generation game by Game Freak one year, an ILCA remake another year, then maybe a Legends game by a new developer, etc. Then there's still a Pokemon game every year without Game Freak neglecting the games' quality. But I don't think TPC is going to compromise on having some kind of new game for the year.

 

[Guinea]

I hope we get another game like 'Legends Arceus'

It was the most fun I've had playing Pokemon since Ultra Moon

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

I hope we get another game like 'Legends Arceus'

It was the most fun I've had playing Pokemon since Ultra Moon

I hear that!

 

[potentially stupid]

I feel like their gonna reveal unova remakes on switch and then legends kyurem on the next major switch console as it's most likely to come out this year

 

[RileyXY1]

I feel like their gonna reveal unova remakes on switch and then legends kyurem on the next major switch console as it's most likely to come out this year

After Indigo Disk shoved Unova in our faces at every turn I think that Unova remakes are just too obvious at this point and I think that they're gonna surprise us with something else instead.

 

[GoldenHo-Oh]

Legends arches was just the gen 4 remake. We only got bdsp because they couldn't get legends out before the holidays.

Nah that game was an entirely original story set in ancient Sinnoh. It definitely wasn't the Gen 4 remake especially since it borrowed heavily from many generations and not just generation 4.

I have no particular hopes for a new game this year. I'm satisfied with the Scarlet and Violet stuff honestly.

 

[RileyXY1]

And I'm not sure if we'll ever get another "Legends" game again. Legends Arceus might have just been a one time thing like Let's Go.

 

[Poke Dragon]

I'd say Unova is much more likely than Johto to get a game this year and it all has to do with how much Unova reference is in the Gen 9 games.

Remember when Sun and Moon and their Ultra versions were practically overloaded with Kanto references then the games after Alola were Kanto games? Yeah, it's basically more likely this scenario again, but with Unova instead.

As for what I think, a Legends Unova or some kind of experimental Unova game.

 

[RileyXY1]

It's also way too soon after BDSP for another remake. If there is a game this year, I'm starting to think that it will take place in a completely new region, not an old one. I'm not expecting any remakes until 2027.

 

[Kallyle]

At this point, I’m convinced that we’ll be getting something completely out of left field here announced during Pokémon Day instead of straight up Johto prequels, Unova sequels, and/or GS/BW remakes. That’s not to say the hints and references to both don’t mean something, but it could be something unorthodox that connects both.

While people used the paradox beasts and paradox swords as evidence for a Johto game or Unova game respectively, there is another thing that connects both regions in relation to both groups that people overlooked: Celebi, the Time Travel Pokémon. Why Celebi? Well…

1. It was introduced in Johto
2. It had Zoroark movie tie-in events in the BW games, as did the shiny Legendary Beasts.
3. Both Celebi and the Swords of Justice are guardians of nature.

As for what we could get involving Celebi based on both regions and our pair of Paradox Legendary trios, I think we might be getting an announcement of a new Legends-like title involving Celebi and the original Area Zero exploration team. We could get this whole thing about how Area Zero has a bunch of rifts in space-time, perhaps allowing us to visit a past version of Johto and a future version of Unova.

I know it’s out there, but I don’t think that just announcing an ILCA faithful remake of GS/BW would be enough to get people’s interest attention after SV. Plus Game Freak could easily reuse assets for such a title:

• Area Zero is still Area Zero, just with some more foliage like depicted in Heath’s books.
• Paradox Johto could reuse Kitakami assets.
• Paradox Unova could reuse assets from Paldea’s cities and the Terarium.