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Official Pokémon Sword and Shield speculation thread (Updated June 5th, 2019)

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Minnale101

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15 mins is a lot. They can really show off a lot

Would love to the online factor
 

multiingbe

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People in general seem to tend to forget that "open world" isn't a must, norm or sign of quality but merely a design choice.

Personally I'm still just not sure if an open world concept would work for a mainline Pokémon game.
I think it could work, but it would take a lot of planning and imagination to figure out how. XD

If it ever happens or even comes close, I think I'd trust GameFreak to have come up with a good solution for it. A faith that comes from them introducing Mega Evolution and not making me hate it one bit. XD Because let's admit it, the idea of a temporary fourth evolution in pokemon prior to Gen 6 sounds like cheesy fan dreams at its finest.

Yes; I think they may wait somewhere between five years at the very earliest, and possibly more than a decade, to fine tune a sandbox/open world-esque
Pokemon experience! At that later time, aspects of open world will be that much more exciting, rather than being overly familiar.

The one other thing that could happen is if the sandbox/open world game actually ends up occurring as a side series and does happen sooner than five years, because it wouldn't have to transfer all of the key mechanics from the main series into that new format.
 

TechSkylander1518

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What that really E3 news?
When?
Like the image says, it's a Pokemon direct, not E3, on June 5.
It sounds like a business presentation, which is odd to be showing the fandom, because none of that will be relevant to us, and some of it, most of us will not be able to understand. At it's simplest, it is something we already know: things are changing at Gamefreak. This could be what that means.
It says it's "expected to cover topics of interest for fans", and they're emailing it to fans on the news list. It'd be pretty weird to be promoting if it was nothing beyond "things are changing here", especially alongside a 15-minute direct.
 

Juizel

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I think it could work, but it would take a lot of planning and imagination to figure out how. XD
Well, it could work to become a playable game and people would play and enjoy it because even for every possible niche there's people who like it. xD
I was more going along the lines if making the mainline games open world would change the core games too much from their essence which...well, people can be unbothered by, but I'm just not. And, on another note, I also simply don't think that Game Freak is capable of delivering the kind of game that would be a "true" open world Pokémon game. (True as in, still feels like Pokémon, and not just an open world game with Pokémon skin)

Could also add that in general I prefer somewhat linear games over full open world. I like to have some kinda red string in my playthrough, and the possibility to do whatever else currently available to procrastinate over there being just everything to do at once and not really sure what I should be doing and getting distracted by anything and everything. Then again, highly subjective.

The one other thing that could happen is if the sandbox/open world game actually ends up occurring as a side series and does happen sooner than five years, because it wouldn't have to transfer all of the key mechanics from the main series into that new format.
I can absolutely see some sort of Pokémon spin-off that is open world tbh, mainly because spin-offs aren't bound by the core game features too much and can throw the current world building a bit under the bus for such purposes. (e.g. talking Pokémon in Mystery Dungeon, lack of humans in that canon.... No trainers in Ranger.... etc.) I really, really just can't see it work out for the main games.
 

Ishida

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I wonder how much they will show at E3 with the Sword and Shield direct being a week before. If anything I could see them showing off some version exclusives or a new gimmick.
 

Oriden

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Well, it could work to become a playable game and people would play and enjoy it because even for every possible niche there's people who like it. xD
I was more going along the lines if making the mainline games open world would change the core games too much from their essence which...well, people can be unbothered by, but I'm just not. And, on another note, I also simply don't think that Game Freak is capable of delivering the kind of game that would be a "true" open world Pokémon game. (True as in, still feels like Pokémon, and not just an open world game with Pokémon skin)

Could also add that in general I prefer somewhat linear games over full open world. I like to have some kinda red string in my playthrough, and the possibility to do whatever else currently available to procrastinate over there being just everything to do at once and not really sure what I should be doing and getting distracted by anything and everything. Then again, highly subjective.
I could see the main series going open world-ish- but more akin to Tales of Symphonia in that the story was still linear and you still had to go to your next destination checkpoint to progress the game, but you could also wander around and explore somewhere else for funsies, and that wouldn't be too terribly different from what we have now with some of the side routes, just far less restricted.

Some gyms could be put at a similar level and allow you to choose the order in which you beat them. So instead of having to beat the gyms in the same order every time, you might be able to pick between two gyms at some point- you would still have to beat them both, but you could choose to beat Gym B before Gym A.

So open world with a linear story is about the extent of where I could see the main series going, with some creative figuring out how to handle encounters and level progression.

What are the odds that a new spinoff game could be revealed in the conference tomorrow?
Well, of the press conferences I know of, we had Pokemon GO revealed at one and Let's Go revealed at the other. And we know that DeNA is working on an app with TPCi, so we could get details on that one.

I am surprisingly excited about tomorrow's Press Conference, for some reason.

IDK why...
XD Because it's Pokemon-related and bound to reveal something?
 

Juizel

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I could see the main series going open world-ish- but more akin to Tales of Symphonia in that the story was still linear and you still had to go to your next destination checkpoint to progress the game, but you could also wander around and explore somewhere else for funsies, and that wouldn't be too terribly different from what we have now with some of the side routes, just far less restricted.

Some gyms could be put at a similar level and allow you to choose the order in which you beat them. So instead of having to beat the gyms in the same order every time, you might be able to pick between two gyms at some point- you would still have to beat them both, but you could choose to beat Gym B before Gym A.

So open world with a linear story is about the extent of where I could see the main series going, with some creative figuring out how to handle encounters and level progression.
That's the sorta idea I had another day, too. (Granted, never played Tales of Symphonia, so I can't relate to that and only go by what you said)
The thing with the gyms was somewhat done in gen 1, though, no? Koga and Sabrina were effectively about the same and you could pick which you'd do first.

Open world with a linear story is something I can see being done in general for Pokémon, yeah but still nothing I'd see Game Freak do. I feel like either they stick to the current formula, or they go full open world and lose the kind of "charm" Pokémon has now (similar to BOTW) which isn't necessarily bad [feel the need to repeat that to not be misunderstood] but... if that's the choice, I prefer keeping the current formula and Pokémon staying just Pokémon. And hope other monster collecting and battling franchises to give me my fix, like Digimon or back in the day Spectrobes
 

techitisJ

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A 15 minute long Pokemon Direct. Wow. What is even happening here? This is some crazy news. Needless to say, I am very excited!

Finally, we are going to get some more concrete information on the game, and more things to speculate about. Knowing the date way in advanced does make me pretty anxious for that day to come, meaning time will move slower. But it's better than just waiting in suspense wondering if something will happen. And before e3 too!

I do think we will still have something at e3. They will likely be showing the game off at Treehouse, at the very least. After all, I am pretty sure this is the only game that is known to be releasing for the Switch near the Holiday season (Animal Crossing was due for a Switch release this year, but we still have no word about it. I think it's still possible, but we probably won't know anything till e3), and Nintendo is really going to need Pokemon there if that is the only big game they have in store for Holiday 2019. After all, the holiday season is important for sales. If I remember correctly, SM also had a trailer in early June before e3, granted it was much smaller and not a Direct. So it's pretty likely we will at least see a little bit of Pokemon.

I am going to go out there and say we are going to get more than just the usual thing for the early trailers. This is a 15 minute direct here, so I feel like they have something pretty big to tell us. Here is my prediction list
  • The Release Date for the Game. They are going into the summer, with at most around 6 more months left before this game is planned to be released. I think this Direct is very likely going to have the date ready for us.
  • The box-legends. With the release date, they will likely want to show off the box art for the game, and thus the legendaries (unless they pull a Gen 1 and remakes on us and say let's do a non-legendary boxart. Which would be cool honestly. If they did go this route, I would love to get some really good art for the game on that cover).
  • Early primary characters. Maybe we'll see the trainer art, as well as meet some of the main usual characters like the professor, the rival, so on so forth.
  • Early Route Pokemon and/or a few random Pokemon in the region. I can honestly see them maybe pulling a similar thing to Sun and Moon, where they waited to show off the early route Pokemon till e3 in the Treehouse. Then instead, they would show off some of the new non-generic Pokemon. Or they could just stick to showing us the early route Pokemon now.
  • Finally, and this one is going a little out of the way than what we usually see this early on, the mechanic of the game. Specifically, I am talking about what is up with the gyms. The extra time in the trailer could definitely be there for the developers to go in and explain how the gyms work in this game since they do seem a lot different than in previous gens. Usually, they don't talk about this kind of mechanic this early, but with this direct being so long, this is the only relatively reasonable thing I could come up with.
Whatever we get to see in this Direct, I am just so excited about it. it's been so long without news, and I am ready to see this game again. Give me the beauty that is Galar.

The Press Conference is also pretty interesting, and the fact that they have announced it and people are even seeing emails for it makes me wonder what it will have. I agree with others who have said that we won't see any SwSh news in it, though they might mention the games. I do think it is possible for them to announce a spin-off title. I am not the biggest spin-off Pokemon game fan, but if they had a new concept for a game, then I'd be down. Lowkey if it was a second Pokemon Snap game I would probably die of happiness.
 

Nicolas721

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The Direct being so long makes me think it will center around something key to the game. Either:

  1. Mega evolution equivalent
  2. Gyms, changes and mechanics
  3. Go, Let's Go & past generations compatibility

We will likely see the legendaries, early-route mons and some footage before.

As for the press conference, I have low expectations about spin-offs, as Rumble Rush has just been released, years with new generations are usually very light on spin-offs, and the last ones (Pokken...DX...) haven't been really my taste. At the very least, I expect hints at new Go mechanics and news about the international release of the Mewtwo movie.
 

Poke Dragon

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Back from a road trip and man am I glad that we will get Pokemon news before E3. Since the Direct is 15 minutes long, I hope we get to see some of the stuff that they kept quiet about during the 3-month drought.
 

PocketMonster

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excited yet have nothing in particular to talk about. What exactly is this thing tomorrow everyone keeps mentioning? Is it something we should hear about from news sources or is it some type of interview video thing?
looking forward to the pokemon direct on june 5th.
 

prog rocker

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excited yet have nothing in particular to talk about. What exactly is this thing tomorrow everyone keeps mentioning? Is it something we should hear about from news sources or is it some type of interview video thing?
looking forward to the pokemon direct on june 5th.
The thing tomorrow is that it would have been 30 days without news. Something that is not true anymore thanks to the Direct news.
 

Myth

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Maybe it's because I'm an N64-era kid, but I don't really see why being on a handheld/home console hybrid now means any really big changes for the series. Sure, there are some massive open world games now, but there are also a lot that just... aren't. And given how Gen 7 was, it wouldn't surprise me if the "switch" to console just results in graphic improvements and bigger and better cutscenes.

It's not about open worlds, though. Really, that (being an open world or not) is subjective. That way you're just creating a straw man.
 
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