In two separate interviews, one with Eurogamer and another with Polygon, Game Freak developers discussed the new gameplay features making their way into Pokémon games.
Pokémon Sword And Shield brings with it some features that have not yet appeared in Pokémon titles, such as open world elements, co-op raid battles, and autosaving. When asked by Chris Taspell of Eurogamer if it is expected the trend of implementing modern design elements was expected to continue, game director Shigeru Ohmori said: “Really what we want to do with that kind of thing is first look at how Pokémon Sword and Shield are received, see what features people enjoy and are well-praised, and then as we go forward in the future. There are obviously other games doing different things like that; we basically just want to look at what does well and what we can improve, based on the kind of feedback we receive for Sword and Shield, and think about what we want to put into future games.”
Speaking to Matt Leone of Polygon, Game Freak producer Junichi Masuda spoke of fan criticism regarding the decision to not include all legacy pokémon in the release of Pokémon Sword And Shield, and its relation to team size and staffing resources. “In any design situation, resources and time are always a constraint on what you can do in a project. But at the same time from a creative perspective, it’s part of a discussion we’ve had at Game Freak with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, and we came to the decision that, at some point, we need to be able to prioritize new gameplay ideas. We need to be able to find a way to balance the right number of Pokémon and also still introduce new ways for players to enjoy the game, new gameplay ideas to keep the series fresh and enjoyable far into the future.”
Interested readers can check out the original interviews here and here.
Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are upcoming role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The duo of pocket-monster catching games are set for release on November 15, 2019.
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