The Pokemon Company needs to be a bit extra adventurous with its eponymous franchise, beginning with the Animal Crossing-like life sim Pokopia and, finally, evolving past simply monsters battling different monsters.
In a February 11 VGC interview, senior recreation director Shigeru Ohmori spoke about the way forward for Pokemon. With Pokopia looming on the Nintendo Swap 2 horizon, he stated that this experience–as nicely as particular moments present in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl–could lead the franchise towards a battle-less future. Or, on the very least, one the place battles aren’t the first focus of the gameplay.
“Once I’ve labored beforehand on a Pokemon undertaking, sure, battles have been the main target,” Ohmori stated. “However there’s additionally been different facet content material just like the Secret Bases (Ruby and Sapphire) and The Grand Underground (Diamond and Pearl). I consider numerous the followers get pleasure from these items as nicely. So, I want to scale the Pokemon video games on the whole, except for battling. I’ll search new prospects to scale them.”
Ohmori then mirrored on the personalities of the pocket monsters that constructed the corporate. Whereas battling is a core a part of their DNA, he expressed a want to search out out what Pokemon are actually like with out all that wanton violence.
“For Pokopia, as you noticed, there aren’t any trainers,” Ohmori stated. “I assumed loads about how Pokemon talk with one another. What are they pondering? How are they feeling? That is one thing we do not get to see within the mainline titles as a result of in these video games, there are trainers.”
Ruby and Sapphire’s Secret Bases are empty rooms that provide the freedom to embellish them nevertheless you see match. Diamond and Pearl’s The Grand Underground not solely homes these Secret Bases but additionally lets you take part in different actions, reminiscent of digging for treasures, speaking with associates regionally or on-line (relying on the sport), buying and selling with retailers, and discovering uncommon Pokemon. It isn’t too dissimilar from the principle gameplay loop, but it surely affords a slight variation on what you’d usually expertise in a Pokemon recreation.
For its half, Pokopia is providing a drastically completely different tackle the conventional Pokemon expertise. As a Ditto cosplaying a human, you go round tending land, befriending Pokemon, and constructing stuff to entice extra Pokemon into changing into your BFF. It is a cozy-cute life sim that borrows from Animal Crossing and Minecraft, and it launches on Nintendo Swap 2 on March 5.