Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

@Grumblevolcano The big announcement is going to be ZA gameplay. They're never going to fix SV.

@VoidofLight I only see Legends Z-A being present in an August Pokemon Presents if it's releasing in Early 2025. If it's later on in the year, I think the next news would be in February.

In any case since the discussion, Nintendo announced Red Rescue Team for NSO in a random tweet so I think there may not be an August Pokemon Presents at all. They'd have announced it in the Pokemon Presents if one was happening.

@Grumblevolcano I still think a Pokemon Presents is possible, if it does happen it will most likely be this week, I can’t see it being later than that.

@RygelXVIII I tried your suggestion and unfortunately it didn't work.

@Grumblevolcano Ehhh. I disagree. I don't think Gamefreak would have revealed PLZA on Pokemon Day 2024 if they weren't going to show anything from the game until Pokemon Day 2025. Even if the game comes out late 2025- I still feel like there's a good chance we'll at least get one gameplay trailer this year.

I don't think Red Rescue Team debunks a Presents happening this year either. Other Pokemon spin-offs got announced for Switch Online outside of Presents as well- and I don't think Gamefreak really covers that in Presents, given Switch Online is primarily a Nintendo thing and not a Gamefreak thing.

Game Freak has created an expectation of having a new game or new DLC content every year. They've had at least one every year since 2015. So people went into Pokemon Day expecting a 2024 game to be announced. Since they didn't have one for 2024, they probably revealed Z-A to let people know they have a game coming, but it's not ready. Additionally, there may have been issues if Z-A was planned to be a cross-gen game, since the Switch 2 was internally delayed from Holiday 2024 to 2025 or later. If Z-A was cross-gen, that means they would be forced to delay it to 2025 as well.

No, it would actually be much more in character for Game Freak to be completely silent for the rest of the year if it's late 2025. They tend to not give much in the way of details until around 3-6 months away from release, and there's been multiple instances in the past where we had a game revealed in January or February and they said nothing until May or June. If it ends up being late 2025, nothing until Pokemon Day is an ENTIRELY realistic, even likely, scenario.

@Bolt_Strike I genuinely hope you're wrong here. Gamefreak would've been in a better position if the Pokemon day presents had nothing about the game if they're not going to show anything later this year. Sure, it would've been disappointing for some fans- but it would've been much better than giving an ambiguous CGI trailer that tells us nothing about the game at all, and then leaving people with nothing to talk about until Pokemon Day 2025.

@VoidofLight Well if my theory about cross gen is correct, it's possible they thought it WOULD be a 2024 release when they put the trailer together and received news about the Switch 2 delay last minute. And it's not the first time they've revealed a game with no gameplay, SM was revealed with nothing more than a wireframe of what we later learned was Pikipek, we didn't see any actual gameplay until June. So it's not unprecedented for us to receive a game announcement with basically no info in it.

I also don't think it really matters whether or not they revealed it. Even if they didn't, we would know something's up by not getting an announcement by June and the complaints and lack of discussion would still occur. I actually think this is slightly better because we at least have SOMETHING to go on even if it's not much and they've been relatively transparent about there being a gap year (or at least as much as you can expect, revealing a 2025 game in a yearly livestream in February sends a pretty strong message).

@Bolt_Strike The thing with Sun and Moon was that we ended up getting more news the same year the game got revealed. With ZA, it'll be an insane gap of time between the game's reveal and actually getting to see what the game is about. This combined with the info we do know being effectively so vague that we're not even sure if the game is going to only be in Lumiose, or what point of time it's set in is troubling.

I'm all for the game getting more time in development. I just feel like Pokemon is one of those series where you can't just reveal the game a year before it's official gameplay reveal.

@VoidofLight Again, it's typical to not know what a game is about at reveal and have to wait until close to release to learn that info. I don't think the length of time is what Game Freak cares about, it's how close it is to release.

Hell, SV cut it even closer. We went all the way until AUGUST knowing little about the game, we had some gameplay teasers showing that it was an open world game that had 4 player co-op but that's it, we didn't know key details like the story premise, whether or not there were gym leaders, hell even the freaking name of the region until a mere 3 months before release. There was also BW2's pre-release, where we didn't really understand what it meant for the game to be a sequel or really anything about the game until a mere 2 months before release (although granted that game's marketing schedule was very weird since it released in June, but still). They don't care about leaving us hanging during the earlier months of the reveal window. They've done it over and over and over again and they don't seem to think it matters. Yes, it's longer this time, but they're far more consistent about cutting it close to release than keeping us informed from reveal to release. 100% if this game is late 2025, we're not going to hear about things such as whether or not the game only takes place in Lumiose or what time period it's in until Pokemon Day at the EARLIEST. If we get anything this far away it's probably going to be something small. Like a teaser trailer that shows a few actual in game locations, or a new Pokemon or something (XY did this, in between the reveal in January and the first big blowout of info in May, all they revealed was Sylveon and Mega Mewtwo Y without revealing the new mechanics of Fairy type and Mega Evolution surrounding them). The kind of info you're waiting for never happens until a few months away from release. We may be waiting until Pokemon Day, hell it's even possible we may be waiting an entire year, before we get those kinds of answers.

@VoidofLight @Bolt_Strike I'd say the closest comparison we have in the Direct era to Legends Z-A regarding timings is Sword/Shield. E3 2017 teased a future core RPG Pokemon game for Switch which turned out to be Sword/Shield revealed in a February 2019 Pokemon Direct.

Not quite the same considering we know a bit more about Legends Z-A (name, release year, that it features Lumiose City from Kalos) but all the other mainline games in the Direct era were announced less than a year before release.

@Grumblevolcano And even then, we still got very little info in the February Direct (we got the starters and the region, that's it). We didn't get concrete details on SwSh until the June Direct (where they revealed the Wild Area, Dynamax, and gyms). That June Direct is equivalent to what VoidofLight is waiting to see from Z-A, and that is typically a June or August announcement, around 4-6 months ahead of release.

I'm just still hoping they'll at least give us a small slice of gameplay before the end of this year. Just something to tell us a little bit more about the game, even if it isn't a huge trailer. The current leading thought is that ZA is supposed to come out around April - November of 2025. Mainly due to how the TCG line-ups are at the current, with them reprinting old mechanics in new sets as padding for no new game releases.

I wonder if Nintendo will do what they did last year and do the September general Direct after the Splatfest. They had Mario Wonder Direct at the end of August, then the following weekend was Splatoon 3 anniversary Splatfest and a few days after that ended was general Direct.

@Grumblevolcano When is the September Splatfest? I think mid-September is a good spot, before Echoes of Wisdom's release, and, like you said, after the Splatfest.

Also, a Pokemon Presents seems less likely now. I think they have some sort of Gamescom involvement, however I think Legends Z-A's gameplay reveal will more likely be in a Pokemon Presents. I don't think we're getting any Direct/Pokemon Presents late August because of Emio, but mid-August is still technically open for some sort of announcement.

@PikminMarioKirby That splatfest begins on September 12.

I wouldn't count Pokemon Presents out until Tuesday of next week. If we don't hear anything then, then we aren't getting one this month.

If we don't get real PL:Z-A news with Presents next week or week after next week or at PWC or at GamesCon and we only get reconfirm of PL:Z-A existence aka they say that they still working on the game, then I considering this as putting salt on the wound situation. And the reason why I would considering this like that is, because this is Nintendo/Exclusive to Nintendo game and not other Platforms game or Multi-Platform game, and Nintendo doesn't like reveal they games too soon aka at the stage where is there nothing to show aka way over the year before release.

@SViper Wouldn't count on Gamescom or PWC having news on Z-A. Gamescom especially, given that it would've been headlined as their big reveal. It's probably just going to be TCGPocket at Gamescom.

If we don't get the presents next week, then it's safe to assume people are right about it being a Pokemon Day 2025 reveal.

@SViper

I mean, if the game doesn't come out until late 2025 what choice would they have? They couldn't ignore it and just announce nothing at all on Pokemon Day this year and they might not have much more to show yet.

That said, I am still hoping that it's an early 2025 game. It would be fun to have a Pokemon Presents next week but I guess we'll see soon.