Pokémon Sword and Shield Announced for Nintendo Switch

This is a guest post from Contributor Derek Grant.

Pokémon games, Sword and Shield, announced during yesterday morning’s Pokémon Direct.

We were shown a short trailer showing a new region, called the Galar region. The short trailer showed off several areas within the game that show how diverse the region is going to be. They are comprised of snowy areas, large forests, and cities. The game also appears to be more open than previous Pokémon games but, at this point, it’s unclear how open or linear the game will be.

The trailer also revealed that Pokémon is going back to a traditional style of gameplay that Pokémon Let’s GO departed from. Random encounters appear to be back, as well as traditional fighting of wild Pokémon and traditional capturing of wild Pokémon.

The starters were also introduced. The water type, Sobble, the fire type, Scorbunny, and the grass type, Grookey. All three are brand new to the series and many more new Pokémon will appear in Sword and Shield, according to the Direct. Of course this sent the internet buzzing about which starter Pokémon is the cutest and the official Pokémon Twitter page shows a poll, to choose which one would you choose on your journey, in which more than eighty thousand people have participated. Scorbunny is in the lead with forty percent of the votes.

It’s difficult to judge a game that isn’t slated for release until later this year, but it appears that this is the game that Pokémon fans have been waiting for. The biggest addition to the game, as far as we know at this point, would be the return of fighting wild Pokémon and catching them the same way trainers have been catching them since the first generation. The return of random encounters also does away with Pokémon roaming the overworld, which we saw in the Pokémon Let’s GO games.

At first glance fan reaction seems to be quite positive with the return of these key Pokémon formulas and there are still many things left unanswered that we’re sure to learn about in the coming months leading up to release.