As the most profitable franchise in history, Pokémon is no stranger to exploring new frontiers. In both its games and merchandise, Pokémon is constantly pushing into new horizons, trying new things, and finding new fans. Yet for decades, fans have wondered about the possibilities of a Pokémon MMO.
It seems a natural fit, yet more than 25 years after the launch of the first Pokémon game, there’s still no MMO out there. So why would Pokémon be such a good fit for an MMO, and why does it look like the stage is set better than ever before?
A Technological Slow Start
The first hurdles preventing Pokémon from becoming an MMO tie into the scope of games in this genre, and the series’ humble roots. Up until the Switch, all mainline Pokémon games were played on dedicated handhelds, the Game Boy, GBA, DS, and 3DS. While these systems are capable platforms in the right hands, none of them were suited to the high requirements of MMO titles. While this does leave open the idea of an MMO spinoff, the financial investment required for such a game would outstrip that for a main series entry, so it wasn’t seriously considered.
Pokémon Possibilities
Pokémon as a series is built around exploring vast worlds, battling, and facing an expanding list of challenges. This is the MMO genre in a nutshell which, when combined with Pokémon’s famous competitive gameplay, presents some profound opportunities for an online setting. With hundreds of Pokémon arriving over the generations, each new version increased the potential of an MMO release, with the fit becoming ever more natural.
Next-Gen Potential
With the release of the new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the series has achieved better sales than ever before. Pokémon news sites have seen the predicted huge surge of traffic when covering both general Pokémon developments and special events related to the new titles. These new titles are more than just the latest in a long line of games, however, they’re also demonstrating the first steps in what could be an MMO testing ground.
Scarlet and Violet are the first Pokémon games to embrace a fully open world. While other games have included considerable exploration and backtracking, none of them have gone this far, and it’s a development that brings the series closer to a true MMO field than at any point in the past. This could be a case of Nintendo testing the waters, but exploring this new frontier, if they choose this direction, will have to wait for the next generation.
While the Switch is the most powerful system Nintendo has released, it’s also pushing the limits of its hardware with the new Pokémon games. Though the game is still fantastically fun, it also experiences limitations in graphics and Pokémon count. Since MMOs are far more draining on hardware than single-player titles, an MMO release would have to wait until the much-rumored Switch hardware update.
Though we can only hazard a guess as to whether a Pokémon MMO would be a dedicated mainline entry or a set of features added onto the next single-player game, the move does seem increasingly likely. It’s something we’ve been dreaming about for decades, and the move has too much financial potential to be ignored by a company as savvy as Nintendo. Even if it brings us back to Kanto to enjoy the world as we once viewed it in our imaginations, that alone would be enough to pull many longtime Pokémon fans in.
Main Image Credit: “Ligue Pokémon” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by DocChewbacca