Live-streamed earlier on Friday, The Pokemon Company finally let fans in on what they had planned coming up this year for the 25th anniversary of the franchise. While we don’t know EVERYTHING that is going to be happening this year or next, we do now know that we can expect an open-world game that looks strikingly similar to Breath of the Wild, this one called Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and it looks like it will be a HUGE evolution of the long-running RPG style that the franchise is known for.
It’s being called a “pre-make” by the developers, and they are also saying it is going to offer a “new challenge and a new frontier for the Pokemon world” which sounds like a pretty big change from the tried and true formula that Pokemon has stuck to forever, even to the detriment of the games according to hardcore fans. It is even mixing up the starters you are able to choose from at the beginning, mixing Rowlet, Oshawott, and Cyndaquil all together. It’s expected to launch on the Switch early next year.
As trainers go through the world, they are able to encounter all kinds of different Pokemon, and by throwing their pokeball containing a captured Pokemon near a wild monster, you enter battle fairly seamlessly. It’s supposed to create a more involved and engaging world apparently, and how effective that is is still to be determined.
At the same event, the company also showed off new remakes that they are offering up on the Switch, these too also a little different than the past mainline series or remakes. This time, we are getting remakes of the Diamond and Pearl games, renamed to be Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl respectively. These will launch later this year after it was somewhat expected that this would be announced after rumors had been swirling for a few weeks online.
Diamond and Pearl launched in 2006 for Nintendo DS. The game introduced the Sinnoh region, home to pokémon such as Bidoof, Luxio, Drifloon, and Arceus. The remakes both seem to be faithful remakes of the originals, and fans have been calling for these for quite a while since this year is the 15th anniversary of the originals’ release. We will bring you more news as it comes out on the Pokemon 25th Anniversary throughout the year, stay up to date with it by subscribing to the CheckpointXP YouTube channel and clicking the bell icon!