Speculation Future Pokemon Game Speculation Thread

[Thegameandwatch]

It's probably because they lived in a handheld bubble up until the Switch. They probably didn't understand why home consoles are so popular because Game Freak and most of TPC never really touched past consoles like the N64, GC, and Wii and didn't really understand what kind of experiences people bought those consoles for (especially the N64 and GC). Even going as far back as the N64 and PS, there's been a strong fascination with open exploration adventure games. You had tons of sandbox platformers like Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, action-adventure games like OoT, exploration heavy RPGs like Final Fantasy VII, but many of the highest selling games on console did and still do put a heavy focus on exploration. There's just an inherent appeal to have a large open space to roam around for hours, days, even weeks. Not to belittle anyone that likes other genres, there are some games that don't fit that pattern that still sell extremely well on consoles, but most frequently the games that do sell on consoles tend to have exploration elements.

And honestly I feel like Nintendo kind of forgot during the Wii and Wii U era as they were chasing casuals, but luckily they remembered with the Switch and that's played a role in why the Wii U failed and the Switch succeeded. The Wii U was especially a sad time for anyone that grew up with the above games or more modern takes on those experiences like Skyrim, all Nintendo really had was BotW, which was delayed into being cross-gen and saw far more success with the Switch than the Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles X, a side entry in the XC series which was (and still is to some degree) a niche ARPG (again, no offense to Xenoblade fans, if you love them then great, they just don't sell super well), and a few ports/remakes and third party games. Slim pickings for fans of those types of games, if you were like me and you grew up with games like Mario 64/Sunshine, Banjo-Kazooie, OoT, and Metroid Prime, you probably didn't see much you liked from the Wii U unless you also liked some other genre. Now I think the marketing confusion was probably a larger factor, but beyond that, I think the lack of these types of experiences on the Wii U really hurt it.

Meanwhile they learned their lesson with the Switch. The Switch had a tremendous launch year lineup, but in particular the one-two punch of BotW and Mario Odyssey (and especially BotW, but the two were pretty much 1a and 1b) really jumpstarted the Switch's success. It was really refreshing having games like this be emphasized after quite a long stretch with little that remotely resembled these games.

Anyway back to Pokemon, seeing BotW bring the kind of success that it did is when the lightbulb really seemed to come on for Game Freak and TPC. I think that's when they started to understand why they were wrong about mobile vs. console. You can really kind of see this with the evolution the series took on the Switch. LGPE was still very much mobile inspired and was probably decided on before they saw BotW's success so it was too late to adapt, then SwSh they threw in the Wild Area to provide a limited form of the BotW type of experience, then with the SwSh DLC and LA they started stepping closer and closer to BotW-esque open world, and then with SV they finally went all in.



Yeah, I feel like people saying "they could just announce something in a Summer Presents" is just copium. Most likely if they had a game to announce for the Holiday season, we'd already know about it.

Now I do think maybe there's an outside chance of NSO ports being revealed at the Summer Presents for this year's "game" but that might just be copium too. Every year I keep thinking "this is the time that NSO ports will be announced" and they keep not saying a word about NSO. IDK what the holdup is, but I think at this point it's probably time to stop expecting this and be pleasantly surprised if it actually happens.

I don't think Gamefreak ever directly worked on a Pokemon home console game until the Switch outside of a few developers or supervising.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I don't think Gamefreak ever directly worked on a Pokemon home console game until the Switch outside of a few developers or supervising.

Game Freak directly hasn't. IDR if TPC has, but it definitely hasn't been much. But yes, they've had little to no experience with consoles before the Switch and largely ignored them until the Switch became a hybrid and they HAD to exist on console. So it makes sense that they would incorrectly predict a console would fail, they have minimal experience so they don't really understand its appeal. The Switch has really been a learning experience for them in that regard.

 

[Nicolas721]

Some random thoughts and speculations:

• ILCA: In one hand, neither Game Freak or Nintendo owns them and they have their own agenda with other companies. But in the other, BDSP's success sales-wise cannot be ignored and GF would probably have nightmares if they had to go through handing a main series game to another company, so I think they'll come back eventually. I'd expect the artstyle to be more polished (possibly abandoning the chibis) and for it to get spin-off levels of publicity so the backlash isn't as hard. Will it be this year with ElectricWhite/FireBlack or X+/Y-? Hard to say.
• NSO games: I think the main reason why they haven't been announced was because of the nightmare that would be the connection to HOME. Additionally, who knows what the service will be replaced with in the next console, so it may feel like an investment with little reward. They could still happen if PLZA were indeed postponed though.
• Upcoming Legends games: It seems Game Freak has moved from regions in order to the regions with the most potential, so the next one could be Johto (because more ancient Japan), Paldea (as the paradoxes could benefit from more lore, and the community would be very welcome to more of them) or maybe even Hoenn (PLA went deep with Hokkaido culture, so GF might want to do the same with another part of their country). I think Alola would have the lowest priority as it would be hard to have it more ancient and uncomfortable to make it more modern. About Unova...it may not seem like it now because of the PLZA hype, but I think that after that game is released "Legends Unova" will be the community's next "Hoenn Confirmed" so GF might eventually do it just because of fan demand, Unova fans will be hungry.

 

[Lapidot Matoi]

Now with the announcement of legends A-Z releasing in 2025, I'm pretty sure the next games will be the start of generation 10.
The next mainline entry will most likely release in 2026 or later, and what better time for generation 10 than the 30th anniversary of Pokemon?

 

[Yung Dramps]

Honestly TPC and Game Freak being worried about the Switch underperforming was totally understandable. We in [current year] can laugh at those statements with the hindsight of how massive it ended up being, but you gotta keep in mind just how much of a trainwreck the entire Wii U era was: I vividly remember how you couldn't go more than a day without a major gaming publication dropping an editorial pondering over whether the time had come for Nintendo to exit the hardware business. Now, think about this from the staff's perspective. There's no new DS/Game Boy successor coming, forcing your arrival to home consoles right after the biggest disaster Nintendo as a company has seen since the Virtual Boy. The day finally comes for you to be debriefed on this new hardware... and it's another underpowered gimmick console. You'd want to hedge your bets under the circumstances, too.

Anywho, so what do we think that Spike Chunsoft trademark before last year's presents was about? Mistake, or an actual attempt at PMD 5/an Explorers remake that got canned or majorly delayed?

 

[RileyXY1]

Now with the announcement of legends A-Z releasing in 2025, I'm pretty sure the next games will be the start of generation 10.
The next mainline entry will most likely release in 2026 or later, and what better time for generation 10 than the 30th anniversary of Pokemon?

I think that Generation 10 will also come in 2025, more specifically in late 2025.

 

[FelipePR]

Some random thoughts and speculations:

• ILCA: In one hand, neither Game Freak or Nintendo owns them and they have their own agenda with other companies. But in the other, BDSP's success sales-wise cannot be ignored and GF would probably have nightmares if they had to go through handing a main series game to another company, so I think they'll come back eventually. I'd expect the artstyle to be more polished (possibly abandoning the chibis) and for it to get spin-off levels of publicity so the backlash isn't as hard. Will it be this year with ElectricWhite/FireBlack or X+/Y-? Hard to say.

I think that Game Freak, itself, does not intend to ever remake Pokémon franchise games again.There have already been several reports from Game Freak producers stating that they would like to work with other games and develop new brands besides Pokémon.

However, due to the strength of the Pokémon brand, as well as the constant release schedule, it was never possible for them to move away from the Pockémon franchise. The Legends series was, on the other hand, their way of reinventing the wheel, that is, of open a window to for change and innovation while still working within the Pokémon franchise.

Therefore, we must count on the participation of ILCA, or some Nintendo subsidiary, in the production of remakes in the near future.

 

[Poke Dragon]

The Pokemon group that is very intentionally absent from the game entirely is a good indication for which region will be revisited next in some capacity. And I mean the only sub-group missing from the group, like how the Gen 4 fossils were the only fossils missing in SW/SH, or how the Aura trio were the only legendaries missing from S/V.

 

[zoroarctic]

Yeah, but those were before TPC figured out their whole Pokemon Presents on Pokemon Day thing. Now that that exists, there is no reason they wouldn't have revealed it already.

Unless they didn't think they could stretch the marketing campaign for 9 months. We'll know for sure by June.

 

[BorealRookidee]

Unless they didn't think they could stretch the marketing campaign for 9 months. We'll know for sure by June.

All they need for that is like two trailers. There's absolutely no reason they cannot do that.

 

[Norzan]

Honestly hope there isn't a game for this year, let all the hype be targeted towards Legends ZA.

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

Honestly hope there isn't a game for this year, let all the hype be targeted towards Legends ZA.

Right there with you on that one.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I would be fine with a later reveal of NSO ports being this year's "game", but other than that, revealing another game would feel cheap and might detract from Z-A and Gen 10.

 

[RileyXY1]

I think that traditional remakes are effectively dead and Legends has replaced them. I think that if they were still interested in doing traditional remakes they would have announced a traditional remake of XY to accompany Legends ZA, but they didn't. I also believe that BDSP wasn't even meant to exist at all.

 

[guzmania]

i think it's way too early to call traditional remakes "dead"
typically they only come every other generation anyway, and i suspect legends is going to be an actual subseries.
it also feels a little early to remake xy imo; kalos' issue most certainly isn't the technological playability (or obtainability; think about how expensive and/or difficult to find copies of some of the earlier games are), it's the obviously unfinished story that left a bad taste in people's mouths.
xy, as of now, doesn't need remakes, which is probably why they're... not being remade. what they needed years ago, and could certainly use now, is a Z version, which happens to be legends z.
in whatever case, i believe one would be jumping the gun to claim that we're not getting any more remakes just because of a (currently) single departure from the norm.
a very welcome one at that

 

[Sheep40]

My theory as to GEN X's gimmick:

Z-moves originated from Ultra Necrozma's light, and the portals Ultra Necrozma tore were in the sky.

Dynamax originates from the radiation of Eternatus, which is given a contrasting darkness motif, and emerged from the earth.

Terastal originates from the bright, shining crystals in Terapagos' body.

This presents a light-dark earth sky motif. Which if this pattern exists the next gimmick would have the motifs of darkness and sky

 

[Stef50S]

Honestly, the older games don't even have to be released on NSO, even just putting them on the eshop to buy individually would be fine with me. In fact, that would probably make HOME connectivity a lot easier or manageable since it would only have to connect with individual software instead of NSO. With that said, if we aren't getting any rereleases this year or next year then it would have to be saved for the 30th anniversary similar to the 3DS and the 20th anniversary.

 

[Yung Dramps]

In an ideal world we would've gotten NSO Gens 1-3 + FRLG ages ago, then later this year DS/3DS VC would drop alongside a trickle of DPPt, HGSS and BW1+2 throughout Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. That way when the first actual big Z-A news drop comes they could close it out with "Want to familiarize yourself with the Kalos legacy before heading into this new adventure? Pokemon X & Y will be added to 3DS Virtual Console later this year, so stay tuned!"

I'm not even asking for anything insane here, this is just what every other Nintendo franchise does. I genuinely don't think this fanbase understands how utterly deranged of a concept "Game Boy retro games service without mainline Pokemon" is. Can you imagine N64 Online with Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 being MIA for years and years? How about SNES with no Yoshi's Island or Super Metroid?

 

[Bolt Strike]

In an ideal world we would've gotten NSO Gens 1-3 + FRLG ages ago, then later this year DS/3DS VC would drop alongside a trickle of DPPt, HGSS and BW1+2 throughout Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. That way when the first actual big Z-A news drop comes they could close it out with "Want to familiarize yourself with the Kalos legacy before heading into this new adventure? Pokemon X & Y will be added to 3DS Virtual Console later this year, so stay tuned!"

I'm not even asking for anything insane here, this is just what every other Nintendo franchise does. I genuinely don't think this fanbase understands how utterly deranged of a concept "Game Boy retro games service without mainline Pokemon" is. Can you imagine N64 Online with Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 being MIA for years and years? How about SNES with no Yoshi's Island or Super Metroid?

This. Pokemon pretty much IS the Game Boy. The main series game far eclipsed everything else in terms of sales and popularity aside from Super Mario Land and Tetris. So having Pokemon missing is a MAJOR loss for the GB's NSO lineup and makes that system feel relatively undesirable. No question, they need to be on the NSO if humanly possible. IDC if it's a slow drip feed and we only get RB announced at first, they need to at least SHOW that main series Pokemon can exist on NSO if they can.

 

[Sheep40]

Imagine if, because of Gen 10's significance, we got all the GBA and titles and BW to allow for full pokemon transfer from all 10 precious generations, with lots of specific acknowledgements for each...