Nintendo Hypes Pokémon Scarlet And Violet's Rich Open World As An "Evolutionary" Step In The Series

Game Freak: don’t mess this up.

The classic way of catching them will return, mark my words. Having said that I don't think it's a bad thing. Honestly, all I want is a game that is actually enjoyable to explore with actual caves, towns, buildings, etc with intrincate designs, not small and limited places like in Sword and Shield.

The mention of open world gameplay has me excited, but even more iffy about this game releasing in 2022. I hope it ends up being good, but this is a lot for them to take on in such a short period of time. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

Won't believe it 'til I see it.

IMO their track record hasn't been encouraging.

So, how do more recent pokemon games play? Turn based?

Guess we know one of the things the Direct around June will focus on, if they don't have another Pokemon Direct before then.

The first open world Pokémon game! I honestly wondered if we’d ever see it.

@roy130390 Honestly, as long as some of the improvements from Legends make it in, I wouldn't mind the traditional battle system or way of catching pokemon.

I already want to see more.

I see fans being cynic and citing some bad track record, but I keep seeing the leap in Sword/Shield > DLC > Legends Arceus > Gen9
And honestly all I see is continued progress.

I’m already sold on this game and look forward to its launch. Just debating what version to preorder…

As long as some of Legends upgrades stay, Im good, an wile I do wish legends catching stays, I do not want them to get Legends battle system, I love the OG battle system.

All I want is a Pokemon game where each battle is like Pokken Tournament; 3D space to move around and attack in. We're probably a few generations out from that ( even if it was like a 2D side-view ), but it would make battles a hell of a lot more interesting.

"Oh, looks like a power cut in town/city4, come back later!"

It's not gonna be like Arceus at all guys. The games are coming out in the same year, they wouldn't have the time to take untested and unproven mechanics from a side game and implement them in the main entries. Traditional catching is gonna be the way this goes with battle transitions and all.

Yeah yea yeah…. I’ve heard that one before

@tharsman yes, progress in baby steps while, in comparison, the rest of the industry leaps, walks, runs, rides motorcycles, find a wife, pay mortgage, have children and THEN those children are taking baby steps.

For an IP that lived since, around the dawn of modern gaming, we are surely taking that progress SLOOOOOOWLY.

I think Stories 2 will keep me occupied for long enough so I'll play so I'll pass.

Theres also Sunbreak and Xenoblade 3 coming out.

@ATaco Actually, there's a chance that some aspects from Arceus will make it's way in here. Maybe not big stuff that changes the formula like overworld catching, but I could see things like manual evolutions and overworld battles being a thing. Mostly because the two games were in development at the same time, and the two teams probably communicated with one another.

Plus, taking a look at the battles shown in the trailer, none of them take place in a preset arena like in Sword and Shield and BDSP.

I would hate to lose a shiny just because it ran away before I could start a battle, again, in Pokemon Legends Arceus...

Evolutionary, huh? Good, that should please everyone, then; if anyone doesn't like the direction the series is going, they can just hold B while they boot the game up.

Im not having really high expectations for Pokemon games anymore, but it looks pretty good, I just want them to show us actual gameplay and mechanics instead of some random footage.

please please please add difficultly levels, my party wasn't wiped out once in sword and shield and I found most of it dull because of that. series seems to have got easier game by game but a lot of pokemon fans now are in their 30s, we can take a little difficulty!

@moodycat
Nintendo have delivered on many fronts on the Switch. GameFreak however, Pokemon Legends is the first decent game they've developed for the Switch so far.

"After 26 years and 122 games, we introduce a new evolutionary step"
This series is evolving like crocodiles...

@iLikeUrAttitude I hope that you enjoy MH Stories 2, I loved it even more than the first one. These games have delivered the joy of discovery and challenge that Pokemon has been lacking lately for me.

I feel like Arceus was far more of an evolutionary step with the way they finally did something about the gameplay and battle system. I think an open world will be kinda minor by comparison, and Pokemon games always felt somewhat open anyways. It's not like I am begging for more open world games these days either, if anything it's been getting played out.

@JayJ totally… every developer now thinks that going “open world” with their IPs is some kind of new revolution, when in reality it just turns games into empty non-inspired landscapes with slogs of unfocused and boring side quests. I don’t want to spend 300 hours on every game like it’s some kind of tedious homework instead of being something fun to escape reality.

It's obviously an evolutionary step no matter how you look at it.

@fafonio Yeah exactly. I mean I enjoy the odd open world game here and there, but in my experience it can make a lot of games boring after a while. I think Ubisoft games are a perfect example of that, just about everything they produce these days is an open world game and they all feel like equally boring and soulless experiences. There's always exceptions where it really works like in Zelda BotW, but I never felt like Pokemon needed to head in that direction. I don't see how it's going to revolutionize the series either, like I said Pokemon games already had a lot of openness to them and the way they set it up gave them a lot of personality and their own unique feel. I fear this will just feel like many other open world games, only with a Pokemon theme.

At least they say townS and citieS!

Watch people complain anyways.

@ATaco Traditional catching is a guarantee, but I have honest hope that we don't have the battle transitions for wild pokemon.

@JayJ I'm going to argue that SOME Pokemon games have some openness to them. Black and white literally go in a circle. Rby give you a little bit of option on letting you choose which of like 3 gym leaders to hit in whatever order. Honestly for the most part, Pokemon games are more of a hallway simulator where you had down this route to this town to take on the gym and head to the next route to this gym so you can continue etc etc.
Maybe with these new games and some smart planning the game will level based on where you choose to go with how many badges you have and let you wander off, which would be nice.

@PhhhCough The gameplay of Pokemon has not changed since Ruby & Sapphire on the GBA. There have been no upgrades, improvements, or reworks. Sun/Moon were decent, Sword/Shield were terrible. I didn't play Legends Of Arceus, but I want to because spin-off Pokemon games are typically better. I will never play mainline Pokemon games again, though. It's a complete waste of money, especially with Xenoblade Chronicles 3 coming.

How much you wanna bet it is 'open world', but you'll still have to do things in a specific set order because certain areas will just have too strong of Pokémon to have a chance against?

@ArcticEcho Except the last big gameplay change was in Gen 4, with the Physical-Special Move Split, and according to GameFreak & TPC Legends is a mainline game...

Really weird they haven't been rushing to change up wildly selling kids' games.

Man, growing up on Wii and PC, BotW was my first time having to deal with camera controls. I'm sure kids these days can handle it, but it's easy to forget how much of a jump that is for people not used to it. I think that's more why they stuck with fixed views for so long than anything.

Would love to be catered to more, but ultimately I'm not the main audience. There's plenty of meatier RPGs out there; Pokémon is, more than anything, a gateway.

An open world where I can see them all moving around, in real time, is just gonna make the lack of stealth catching options feel weird. So many opportunities will present themselves for what would appear to be obviously easy/awesome stealth catches just for.... Boop Turn 1, please?

@ArcticEcho yeesh, that bad? I figured a pokemon game, similar to xenoblade would be nice. Walk around in third person, when you encounter an enemy, you control your pokemon with their powers mapped to the face buttons and rolls/maneuvers mapped to the shoulders. Level up, chose which powers to get or upgrade, etc., open world, yadda yadda.

But what about sending out your party pokemon in the over world when you’re just hanging out? That’s one of the best parts of Arceus and there’s no reason not to include that again.

@shoeses that’s fine when it comes to having to beat gyms in a certain order, since of course all gym leaders will be at different levels

Borderless as in, no loading screens?

The fact that they promise and display Pokemon seamlessly populating the streets, towns and sky is what excites me the most! I hope we can seamlessly soar across the sky and fly past flocks of Flying Pokemon like we saw in the trailer.

Even in Legends Arceus, the Pokemon in the hub town were heavily scripted, and especially so in Sword/Shield, as well as previous generations. I would love to see Pokemon organically wandering about, both in and out of cities.

@tedwards75 Except that they could fairly easily make them scale to how many Badges you have, a neat concept that Pokémon Origins introduced.

People thinking this will 100% be a Pokémon Legends clone will be up for a disappointment. It’s a new Gen mainline Pokémon game at the end of the day.

Legends didn’t even invent the “open world” atmosphere for Pokémon. Sword and Shield for instance already had the Wild areas [with the two big expansion areas being a blatant precursor for Legends that the Legends devs themselves cited]

@shoeses Sorry, I thought it was gen 3 that added that. Also, it doesn't matter what they say, Arceus isn't a mainline game because it's neither a remake nor set in a new region, and there aren't 2 versions that you trade and battle between. I put it in the same category as Stadium, Colliseum, XD.

@PhhhCough That's what I thought was the clear and obvious evolution of the series, but Pokemon prints money just by existing, so they have no reason to make it something great.

@ProjectShadow FANTASTIC NEWS they already have what you want it's called pokken tournament! I don't see mainline pokemon games ever going thar way thankfully that would be so bad so very bad

@Arawn93 Not sure why it being a mainline game means anything. Why wouldn't this be a game that expands on Legends? You said the idea of an open world in Pokémon started with Sword & Shield wild areas, which then led to the expansion packs, which the Legends devs took inspiration from. Doesn't that mean Scarlet Violet will go a step further?

I hate the 3D art style they chosen for this game... I which they had kept the art style that Sword & Shield had, or the one that Diamond and Pearl had (not the chibi models, the battle non chibi 3D models) those are so cute and appealing, this one just looks... really weird and them protagonists kinda look like really lame...

Open World but if you return to using the same old mechanics as previous Pokémon other then based on Arceus this isn't revolutionary.