The Makers Of Pokémon Are About To Break A 15-Year Cycle

Yahoo

27-02-2025

Today's Pokémon Presents was more notable for what it didn't include than for what it did. While news of Legends: Z-A was very welcome, what was not mentioned—nor ever rumored to be mentioned—was Pokémon's next mainline entry. And yet, based on the pattern of the last decade-and-a-half, this should have been the day we learned of a new core title in the world's most popular franchise, and got our first few hints about a whole new generation of pocket monsters. But...silence.
On February 27, 2022, the Pokémon Day special video surprised audiences with the reveal of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and the introduction of the three starter Pokémon who would be appearing in the game. It was the start of nine months of nonstop reveals of the 120 new creatures being added to the Pokédex, alongside excitement about the Nintendo Switch's second mainline entry, following 2019's Sword and Shield. And while it was a surprise announcement in the sense that Nintendo had kept it under wraps until that point, it was also expected that a new game would be announced, because there's a new game every three years, right?
That's actually only been true since 2010, following the launch of Black and White. By 2013 we had X and Y (as well as the bonus of the first and only sequels, Black 2 and White 2 in 2012). Then, like clockwork, 2016 gave us Sun and Moon, before 2019's Sword and Shield, and 2022's S&V. That's five mainline entries in a row, each three years apart, rather giving the impression that this was to be the norm. And it almost is; aside from 2006's Diamond and Pearl and 2010's Black and White, each coming out four years after the previous, it's always been three years.
Seemingly, 2025 is to be another of those exceptions. What's so odd is the complete quiet about it all. No one seems to have noticed?
As an observer, it really rather looked like Game Freak had little choice but to get a mainline game out every third year—to the point where the clearly unpolished Scarlet and Violet would surely have been given more time under any other circumstances. But there's a vast industry built around those games, and missing its release date would have knocked over a row of dominos that could have cost Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures and The Pokémon Company (a confusing collection of companies who all overlap in the middle) billions.
Think about the Pokémon TCG. Every three years for the last 15, a new era of cards is launched, themed around the name and region of the most recent game, and highlighting the Pokémon introduced in the new generation. Those cards have to be in production long before the game's even released, given—for instance—Japan's first set of Scarlet & Violet era TCG cards were released in January 2023, just two months after the game came out. The artwork alone would have been commissioned months ahead, and the intricacies of the game design based on all the new monsters worked out well in advance, too. If the game slipped, the cards would either have to be enormously expensively delayed, or come out ahead of the game and ruin twists and surprises, and in turn knock down the next domino: merchandise.
So to shift to a four-year development cycle (and let's be clear, they absolutely should, or even a longer one, because Game Freak employees deserve the time and space to avoid crunch and make the best game possible) has enormous implications. Ones that must be planned for, presumably years in advance. Nintendo, Game Freak, et al, are all so notoriously tight-lipped about everything, and it's wildly unlikely they'd ever tell anyone such intentions, so we're left to just guess. And my guess would be that the reaction to Scarlet and Violet's dubious (and ongoing) technical state caused decisions to be made within to do two different things:
1) Take longer to make an open-world game that isn't cracking at the seams
2) Make it for the Switch 2 only
That latter one would have been very difficult to get away with in 2025. Sure, it'd have been an amazing way to sell Switch 2s over the 2025 holiday season, but the console would still be six months old at most, and most people would expect a game announced today to work on the console they own today. But next year? It's an easier sell. In fact, it's pretty much bog-standard for a new Pokémon game to release a year or two after the latest Nintendo hardware.
The implications are still interesting, however. The PTCG is going to need to run SV for an extra year, and it's already looking a bit worn out. The ex era is being revamped later this year with the addition of mega evolution cards, but while that'll change up the meta a bit and obviously give them a chance to take advantage of the current ludicrous boom in sales to sell a gazillion Mega Charizard-themed boxes, it still leaves 2026 and the first half of 2027 to fill with Generation IX. That explains 2025's year-long release of Prismatic Evolution special sets, a year earlier than you'd have expected given how the Sword & Shield era ended with a full year of Crown Zenith sets—it's clearly a mid-point thing, rather than an ending. We can expect some sort of ex-celebrating bonanza next year, maybe?
Anyway, there you go. Just in case you too were thinking how weird it is that no one's talking about this.
Unless of course they go and surprise-announce it in the April Nintendo Direct, and make me look like a complete fool.
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