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Let's speculate wildly and guess all kinds of stupidly unlikely possibilities! Let's go CRAZY!
/s, in case that wasn't extremely obvious.
Anyway, I actually have no inkling what this could end up being. Fully awaiting this with an open mind and ready to be completely surprised. Will be interested to read people's guesses, though so I can laugh at the most wildly wrong ones
Just please not be gen10, give that another year of development.
Hopefully we get some cool spinoff games, wouldn't mind another competitive mobile game with decent budget like Unite, or just something fun like Snap and PMD.
The best we could get is another revisit to a previous region like PLA, it doesn't need to be a Legends game tho, nor a remake, I kinda lost faith on remakes so would prefer if they avoid that and finally port the old games to the switch, kind of weird we had gen1-2 in the 3DS but then didn't bother to port them to the switch after the 3DS eshop shut down, is easy money for them.
Since a remake of some sorts (either Gen 5 or Gen 2, it seems) is very likely on the table, I am expecting it to be yet another case of ILCA being tasked with making the said remake.
Although BDSP has brought ILCA a lot of (deserved) bad reputation, I don't think this time will be as bad.
1. The biggest issue with BDSP was the horrific glitchyness of the game, and the fact that it released unfinished and required multiple patches just to be in a barely complete state. I would like to be optimistic that the Pokémon Company learned their lesson, and gave ILCA enough time to actually finish the game in time to avoid another disastrous release.
2. The other big issue with BDSP was that it was too faithful as a remake. It copied DP 1-to-1, including all the numerous flaws, without accounting for the fixes in Platinum. If we get BW remakes, this issue will be partially accounted for simply by the fact that faithful BW remakes are much more capable of standing on their own than DP ever could. That's not to say that BW aren't without flaws, but they are somewhat less apparent.
If they are remaking Johto games instead, we can expect the result to be disastrous, since ILCA is highly unlikely to fix many of Johto's biggest flaws like the level curve or the Pokémon distribution. Not to mention that all the improvements from HGSS to the Johto experience will definitely be butchered or outright removed in ILCA's version of the game.
3. If it really is BW remakes that we're getting, then it means that we will finally be getting back Triple and Rotation battles, and that alone is enough reason to remain very hopeful. Surely even ILCA can't ruin that aspect of the game?
I love being bombarded with notifications of events for games I don’t play for 20 minutes straight. Nothing fills my heart with joy quite like Pokemon Sleep telling me I can turn the basic mammalian act of rest into different gacha rolls this week. I can’t wait to look up the presentation time half way through and see there’s still 15 more minutes of ads (yucky) before we finally get to the ads (good). If anyone needs me during the presentation, please be aware I will be frantically redownloading Pokemon Cafe Remix so I can get the new Pokemon Day special parties where a shiny pikachu speaking to me specifically in English calls me a lard ass.
I don’t expect a new gen at all. Game freak has always expressed their desires to surprise players, but a new gen this fast is one hell of a curveball. I expect something remake related if anything. Part of me wonders if the blowback from BDSP means something simpler. I would not be surprised if a potential bw remake is instead like a bw1 + b2w2 package or something. I would love love love the GB games on VC too; seems like a decent void filler if there’s maybe a light year ahead or something.
-A new Mythic, or something Mythic-adjacent. It'll be something you can get "now" (or within a few months) and then has a fancier gimmick if you bring it into their new game. I suspect this will bet he last notable update SV gets, but it won't add anything other than the Mythic. The gimmick won't be backported.
-I'm still not sure on a movie to go with it. The timeline's pretty tight and there doesn't seem to be any rumblings about it. But it could be something that doesn't get a theatrical release, or could even be a special. Either way I would hazard a guess it won't use Liko; I think this will be something they want to have a more world-wide release and the last 3 movies showed they dont' have to be concurrent with the running anime. Ash would be my first guess, if they want to "bring him back" already, but I could see it just being an entirely original MC like they do with the web animes.
-Some Legendary raid. It's kind of hard to recapture the "magic" of the Mewtwo raid from last year, but maybe just settle for something like Dialga/Palkia from the release of Indigo Disk. The SWSH Wolves would be attention grabbing; or maybe do 7* Eternatus and then give away a wolf based on your version (cant make them TOO easy to get, you see)
-ILCA remake of something. Probably BW1 but I mean it could be anything for all we know. With BDSP I still feel like the kind of remake we got, wasn't the one originally planned due to development issues, but since it was such a success I think they will continue doing the overly-faithful remake treatment with minimal changes. Ideally since covid disruption isnt as big a thing and they approach it with that idea in mind from day 1, the game wont be as much of a mess. If it is BW1 I suspect the one "really big" change is that the Entralink will become the new Underground; a place to get more Pokemon than just the ones in the Unova dex, and the one part of the game where everything is just spread around the overworld with different areas of the forest now themed after the dream worlds. Musicals will probably also get a change just so they don't have to deal with the accessory component. PokeTransporter building will be replaced with something that let's you get Legendary Pokemon like Ramanas Park. Still only have Gens 1-5 Pokemon. None of the missing Pokemon will be backported to SV. Probably aiming for late 2024
-Some new main game. Maybe it's Unova, maybe it's Johto, but probably some revisit to an existing region. Maybe it's Kalos! Who knows. I think it wont necessarily be "Let's Go" or "Legends" but instead a third "experimental" title that still has a bigger focus on Capturing than Battling. Maybe they get away from the exploratory aspect for this one, just as something different? It will still probably be janky and a little ugly. Will have a few new Pokemon that won't be backported to SV. I bet Furfrou isn't even here lmao. Probably a few months after the ILCA remake, whether that's early 2025 or late-late 2024 is up in the air.
-Some new spin off. Maybe mystery dungeon finally comes back, or it's something new, or it's a mobile title. But I think we'll get SOMETHING.
-Gen 1 titles on either the eShop sold separately or as part of NSO. The savestate and rollback feature will of course, be removed, but it'll have online play this time so that's nice. It will get Home functionality eventually, just not at launch or for months after launch.
so you mean i can't post about the dream nat-dex-every-region-all-gimmicks-open-world game we're definitely getting...? :( /j
more seriously, i don't know if i can see remakes dropping this soon after bdsp (although actually i've just checked and apparently they came out in 2021????? dear god where does the time go). feels too soon for a new gen, too, so i honestly don't know what we'll be getting.
there will be something, though! ian pikachu's got to keep the moneymill churning
Lol no, 0% chance. A generation is 3 years at the hard minimum and we've only barely passed the one year benchmark of Gen 9 so far.
Anyway we've now reached a point where I honestly have no idea what to expect as far as mainline releases are concerned. The Switch era has been so unpredictable and diverse with releases that it's now literally a game of anything goes now. So far we have had a POGO-styled Yellow remake, a traditional new gen game in Sword and Shield, an ARPG title set in ancient Sinnoh, and another classical new gen game in SV that's open world. And both SwSh and SV got DLC expansions instead of third versions.
Mainline Pokemon games used to be very predictable because for years they followed a very rigid formula of releases and games, but now it's become so much more unpredictable in that you never know what might happen.
Anything could happen now. The fan speculation is that we're returning to at least one of Unova or Johto in the future, but what kind of game we'll get and in what form is unpredictable. I'd be down for a BW3 or another Johto game since I love those regions, but I'm not gonna make any assumptions for now.
I’m loosely expecting a Unova-based something, not necessarily taking the same approach that they did with Gen 4, but I guess by all metrics that worked pretty well so they’d certainly have reason to do it again.
I’m not especially committed to any predictions though. All the Gen 5 shoutouts in the SV DLC could just as easily have been a Game Freak Whim™, Legends could just be a one-off that they don’t go any further with, and I genuinely don’t think GF have the same sense of seniority priority that fans do when choosing to revisit regions — that is to say, I doubt anyone there is saying, “Ah-ah-ah, we can’t remake Unova until we do Johto first!” (They didn’t make LGPE when they did because “FRLG came before Sinnoh”; they did it because it was just the most obvious, intuitive choice for a game to onboard GO players.) So in a way I kind of feel like all bets are off, ‘cause GF have a record of being willing to break patterns and be unpredictable. It’s hard to know when they’re about to throw a curve ball.
I think that is the main reason I am not excluding the possibility of just throwing out gen 10.
Not saying it's likely, just that it's possible. *normally* they would have filled the gap with a remake or 2nd version, but since the DLCs are the new remakes, these dramatically reduce the lifespan of the game they are in.
This generation also introduced ""national dex"" way earlier than usual, with transfer only mons already being available on the first Worlds rather than the second one. Feels like they are going faster.
So hear me out, while everyone is busy theorymonning on a new remake, lets go, legend or what not... my money is instead on them skipping the "remake" altoghether and already heading to gen 10 as next game. With some random spinoff filler released this summer.
Alright listen, I loved BDSP and my only gripe with it was no fully realized battle frontier. With that being said, I'm not expecting any remakes or in everyone else's opinion a demake. I think they'll announce some POGO stuff, new plushies, UNITE stuff, and some new bullshit Mobile game. I genuinely believe (wishful thinking and enough copium to kill a small village) that the release of Palworld and the controversies surrounding Game Freak's releases is making them think about where the series is going to go even with constant pressure from Nintendo to release stuff.
IF there is a remake in the works I'd assume it was started immediately after BDSP's release and will likely be announced for release during the holiday season. I'm hoping its a remake of Generation 5 but in the scenario of the second games. This, however, is just completely wishful thinking and they'll remake the base BW games because Nintendo doesn't like to listen to its customers. They could also just remake another mystery dungeon game which would be epic as long as its Explorers of Sky since that's the definitive edition of the series. I don't see them remaking Time & Darkness and making them separate releases.
I think that is the main reason I am not excluding the possibility of just throwing out gen 10.
Not saying it's likely, just that it's possible. *normally* they would have filled the gap with a remake or 2nd version, but since the DLCs are the new remakes, these dramatically reduce the lifespan of the game they are in.
This generation also introduced ""national dex"" way earlier than usual, with transfer only mons already being available on the first Worlds rather than the second one. Feels like they are going faster.
So hear me out, while everyone is busy theorymonning on a new remake, lets go, legend or what not... my money is instead on them skipping the "remake" altoghether and already heading to gen 10 as next game. With some random spinoff filler released this summer.
Because what's the point of going directly to gen 10 when they can have less intensive games in the meantime. I highly doubt Gen 10 would have the entire team on deck instead of hte usual team a/team b they've been handling, and nor would they want to rush Gen 10 through an even shorter development cycle.
Also DLC instead of third versions doesnt dramatically cut the lifespan? We can see that from last generation, the way they treat the DLC is the same. It's still a solid 2 years of the same "game", while they can instead focus on a new game that can call on old stuff.
- Majority of the presents will be dedicated to Mobile Game info. Besides the various Gachas I don't keep up with, Pokemon Go is wrapping up its current Season with Go Tour Sinnoh and Origin Palkia/Dialga. This seems like the kind of time that game will drop its next Month/Season Roadmap with stuff they can't quite find a big in-person event for but will generate hype, such as Remaining Meta Megas (Lucario, Heracross, the Mewtwos, etc). They already confirmed other subjects of speculation aren't in the cards atm like Arceus or Manaphy, and I feel like hard confirming that would only occur if they wanted people to speculate on "well then what CAN it be?!"
- Some TCG news since they have the Kitakami themed stuff coming, probably tease at something for ID related mons and keep that merch machine going.
- SV announces some upcoming Raid event for another transfer-only set of Mons. Stuff I speculate on includes Calyrex (to go with the Horses being in the DLC), Zacian/Zamazenta for Eternatus later, or Keldeo for a "training" event and because it's the only "regular" mon with a connection to Paradox Legends still missing (Ho-oh is in for the Beasts and the regular Swords are all from Snacksworth). Or maybe it's just a Sinnoh spray because of the Sinnoh Tour stuff since people will have caught a bunch of Legendaries in connection to it and need an in-game encounter to allow their transfer.
- A tease of some game for the Holiday Season that, mainline or not, is intended to be significant enough in scale to be their focal point there. People are going to be antsy about straight Unova remakes after BDSP, but I also have my doubts they do something like that since most of the Unova Legendaries are available in SV after the DLC. If I were to bet, I'd expect either a Legends Game again or something like Home-Compatible Ports of older games to futureproof against Bank's eventual closure.
-- My doubt against something like Black Shadow and White Lightning or something is that the Unova games were the first ones to have direct sequels in mainline, and compared to something like the Orre games, B2W2 explicitly follow up on events and threads from BW, such that from a branding stand point one game is incomplete without the other, compared to how Emerald or Platinum content was stuff they could roll into dual remakes (didn't but had the ability to).
-- A lot of people speculate on a Legends Unova game because of the Unova focus in the Indigo Disk, but I'm iffier there. The only Gen I can think of that heavily referenced the Remake-Region in its corresponding main entry is Sinnoh having things like Jasmine's Cameo or the mention of the Rage Candy Bar being out of stock in Veilstone. RS barely bring up Kanto and even Colosseum was mostly for the Johto Mons that were missing, Kalos was more a Kanto fest because of the Anniversary, and Galar I can't think of many Regional references in general outside Meta things like the Gigantamax focus on Kanto mons. Additionally, Legends Arceus focused on Sinnoh which happened to include the missing Mythicals from SwSh's roster even with transfers, so I'm willing to speculate this hypothetical game would do similarly.
-- With the above stupidity on my pattern recognition, I'm led to expect a Legends Kalos game, as people speculated on heavily with the Iberian Peninsula basis for Paldea, the explicit absence of the Kalos Legendary trio, extremely underexplored lore for the region, and 10+ year gap with XY's original release in such a release season (Legends Arceus being 14 years after Platinum given how many elements it draws from like Giratina's post-game conflict and the Origin Forms given to Palkia/Dialga).
I doubt any Gen 10 news until Nintendo confirms whatever and whenever they're doing for new hardware, as two Generations is the most any Console has received, even on something as big as the DS. Maybe we get a sneak peek Pokemon ala Meltan or Bonsly, but nothing like a region tease for a while
Also DLC instead of third versions doesnt dramatically cut the lifespan? We can see that from last generation, the way they treat the DLC is the same. It's still a solid 2 years of the same "game", while they can instead focus on a new game that can call on old stuff.
I am not considering SwSh as good example because they had the issue of being released during Covid time that fucked over production lines.
I would honestly see as more productive to have 2 year gens instead of 3 year generations with random spinoff game in between, expecially if they keep with spinoff games that are not part of the main series and thus don't specifically belong to a generation.
Expecially as, to cycle back to the VGC issue, we know TPCI/Nintendo have been trying their hardest to make them become some kind of moderately successful e-sport: if they do not propose a big metagame shift soon, we're looking at 6 months of the same regulation/meta, and then another 12 (!!!) of the same again. Even if they were to pull a similar shenenigan to gen 7 and 8 (allow 1 restricted first, 2 restricted after), that still means 6 months of stale tournaments. If we learned something from the downfall of Overwatch, it's that stale metas don't bring viewers and bore players away.
It's just speculation anyway, I think that "cutting 1 year" is a reasonable thing they may do, but I do not have a crystal ball or anything like it.
I doubt any Gen 10 news until Nintendo confirms whatever and whenever they're doing for new hardware, as two Generations is the most any Console has received, even on something as big as the DS.
this one i do disagree as motivation, simply because it's very likely Switch 2 will be able to run Switch games without issues, so whenever it releases or not by the time gen 10 is out is not relevant.
I am not considering SwSh as good example because they had the issue of being released during Covid time that fucked over production lines.
I would honestly see as more productive to have 2 year gens instead of 3 year generations with random spinoff game in between, expecially if they keep with spinoff games that are not part of the main series and thus don't specifically belong to a generation.
Expecially as, to cycle back to the VGC issue, we know TPCI/Nintendo have been trying their hardest to make them become some kind of moderately successful e-sport: if they do not propose a big metagame shift soon, we're looking at 6 months of the same regulation/meta, and then another 12 (!!!) of the same again. Even if they were to pull a similar shenenigan to gen 7 and 8 (allow 1 restricted first, 2 restricted after), that still means 6 months of stale tournaments. If we learned something from the downfall of Overwatch, it's that stale metas don't bring viewers and bore players away.
It's just speculation anyway, I think that "cutting 1 year" is a reasonable thing they may do, but I do not have a crystal ball or anything like it.
That said...
this one i do disagree as motivation, simply because it's very likely Switch 2 will be able to run Switch games without issues, so whenever it releases or not by the time gen 10 is out is not relevant.
What does covid have to do with anything, the DLC and Legends were already being worked on when that hit.
In what universe is cutting a year of dev time a reasonable thing? It is not more productive, Generations are almost certainly a more intense workload and should absolutely get more time in the oven.
A new generation every 2 years is insane.
And full stop I don't think VGC is enough of a reason to push out more Gens faster. If it's stale to have the same ruleset for a year oh well it'll be stale and they either like that, will implement a different plan the next generation, or they can forsee that issue implement a different rule set for the last year. Maybe Mythics come out to play, maybe they let you use more restricteds, maybe they inexplicably bring back the mark regulation, etc etc.
Covid has a lot to do with it, many games that were in development during that time had to slow down significantly due to companies needing to move to working from home, and Japan was no exception. Whatever their release schedule was, it definitely took a hit.
Though, I could give you that they might just have taken the hit in quality and released the games with the bugs they had (shoutout to the tree and render distance and horrible wild area performance)
I think the raid event for Pokemon Day won't be too big, based on SWSH managing to reference Kanto every time in a less imposing way (Mewtwo + starters, Gigantamax Pikachu + defeat count incentive, Gigantamax Kanto starters). Last year we had a 7* Pikachu raid on the weekend right before Pokemon Day with no rerun, which ended early to immediately make way for the surprise paradox update/drop which lasted for a good while, and I feel like this year's will be similar in terms of length and when it drops.
This year we just didn't get any event raid for this week at all, which I thought would be to make room for this one or the rumoured direct before we knew it was a partner showcase. Personally I would have liked to get another shot at the Pikachu raid this weekend if they had the time anyway. Ideally we would get some interesting 7 star raid to make up for it like patching in stellar support or a new gimmick, and on the other hand the worst raid idea I could think of would be something like "Walking Wake and Iron Leaves but not shiny locked", so I guess I'm putting my hopes more towards a new fight being satisfying enough even if it has to be a 5-star one with version exclusives.
I don't have much stake in the new game race but I think ILCA's take on HGSS would be interesting just to see them go hard on all the postgame teams again starting from Kanto, but also fix Johto's most immediate problems by removing HMs and adding in EXP Share and bringing back the battle frontier for the sake of it. NSO Gen 1 would make sense for Stadium but I feel like the HOME interface for it would be messy. Maybe this time they could block all Mews and just not distribute any.
Also, the obligatory UNITE announcement seems to be a particularly poorly kept secret so it's not much of a prediction, but I will note it anyway for the sake of it being basically confirmed through leaks. Miraidon and its related events (with shiny Rayquaza being randomly revealed through a tweet 4 days ago, available for the time period surrounding Pokemon Day) have been datamined for a while and it has been playable on their public test server along with Falinks.
Covid has a lot to do with it, many games that were in development during that time had to slow down significantly due to companies needing to move to working from home, and Japan was no exception. Whatever their release schedule was, it definitely took a hit.
Though, I could give you that they might just have taken the hit in quality and released the games with the bugs they had (shoutout to the tree and render distance and horrible wild area performance)
SWSh came out before covid, so that doesnt matter to any of the mess that happened there
the DLC was absolutely under development before covid, it + them making a pretty smooth transition from WFH is why it maintained its release that year
Legends Arceus was, I am fairly certain, in the same boat at least in terms of preproduction. Covid likely affected things more here and I still think it rseulted in a small delay, but it was definitely still in the cards
Covid affected a lot of things for sure but it is utterly bizarre to me to look at what happened in gen 8 and its intersection of covid and then conclude "it makes more sense to just make a new generation now"
Since a remake of some sorts (either Gen 5 or Gen 2, it seems) is very likely on the table, I am expecting it to be yet another case of ILCA being tasked with making the said remake.
Although BDSP has brought ILCA a lot of (deserved) bad reputation, I don't think this time will be as bad.
1. The biggest issue with BDSP was the horrific glitchyness of the game, and the fact that it released unfinished and required multiple patches just to be in a barely complete state. I would like to be optimistic that the Pokémon Company learned their lesson, and gave ILCA enough time to actually finish the game in time to avoid another disastrous release.
2. The other big issue with BDSP was that it was too faithful as a remake. It copied DP 1-to-1, including all the numerous flaws, without accounting for the fixes in Platinum. If we get BW remakes, this issue will be partially accounted for simply by the fact that faithful BW remakes are much more capable of standing on their own than DP ever could. That's not to say that BW aren't without flaws, but they are somewhat less apparent.
If they are remaking Johto games instead, we can expect the result to be disastrous, since ILCA is highly unlikely to fix many of Johto's biggest flaws like the level curve or the Pokémon distribution. Not to mention that all the improvements from HGSS to the Johto experience will definitely be butchered or outright removed in ILCA's version of the game.
3. If it really is BW remakes that we're getting, then it means that we will finally be getting back Triple and Rotation battles, and that alone is enough reason to remain very hopeful. Surely even ILCA can't ruin that aspect of the game?
If we do get BW remakes on switch then triple battles and rotation battles would probably be something to look forward to. If they don't then that would ruin a huge part of the fun that The Unova Region has.
I don't see remakes making "them" anymore money unless they wish to plug in a game for this year or 2025. Hopefully, we get a Palworld response and watch if it's on their radar!
I think that depends on how the game will actaully turn out. If it is a BW remake, than were gonna have to expect it to be good or else, as you say, they're not gonna be making much money.
I'm doubling- sorry, tripling down on my prediction that there won't be any new core series games shown off here. I've already mentioned this to my other friends and posted about this in the YouTube comment section. Unfortunately, I don't see any spinoff games being revealed either. In no particular order, here's what I believe fans can expect to see:
Pokémon Unite fully reveals Miraidon's arrival into the game, with a release date
Pokémon Horizons gets a launch day trailer for its international release; no information about a new movie
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet gets another raid battle event of some kind, although what Pokémon it is I don't know yet
The following games will receive mentions of content updates:
Pokémon Go
Pokémon Masters EX (4.5 anniversary update more than likely)
Pokémon Cafe Remix
The presentation will spend at least five minutes talking about Worlds again
Following Pokémon Concierge's confirmation of new episodes, those will get a short trailer
Much less certain: Presentation ends off with a short reveal for Nintendo Switch Online for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 games; these will presumably be virtually (pun intended) identical to the 3DS versions and be compatible with Pokémon HOME, but not Pokémon Stadium
From what I'm gathering so far, the predictability around NSO releases for these games is fluctuating, largely in part due to the YouTube livestream's game tag being set as Pokémon Gold & Silver. This does not guarantee anything, however, as it is worth noting that prior to its release, the Pokémon Day 2021 livestream did not have Diamond & Pearl as its YouTube game tag. Said game tag was only updated after the livestream concluded.
