It says something about the state of a video game series when lots of fans are happy the next game is coming later than expected. That’s what happened this week in the Pokémon community, after Game Freak and The Pokémon Company revealed Pokémon Legends: Z-A is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2025. Many trainers — myself included — let out a huge sigh of relief after learning that Pokémon is taking a much-needed break in 2024, ending a streak that lasted eight consecutive years of new mainline content.
Since 2016, Pokémon’s release schedule has looked like this:
- 2016: Sun & Moon
- 2017: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon
- 2018: Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Let’s Go, Eevee!
- 2019: Sword & Shield
- 2020: Sword & Shield DLC
- 2021: Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl
- 2022: Legends: Arceus and Scarlet & Violet
- 2023: Scarlet & Violet DLC
It’s been a crazy cadence of video game launches with absolutely no time to breathe, and the signs of unsustainability have been showing for multiple years at this point. 2022 alone saw two hugely ambitious Pokémon games come out of Game Freak. And while I absolutely adore Legends: Arceus’ spin on the Pokémon formula, and I respect Scarlet & Violet for shaking things up in a big way, all of the aspirations and innovations were significantly overshadowed by low-quality graphics and — in Scarlet & Violet’s case — unacceptable technical performance. Scarlet & Violet’s issues brought it to the point where Nintendo shared an apology, which you almost never see from the company. I’ve seen a lot of black-text-on-yellow-background apologies in the last several years but I never expect to see it from Nintendo.
I don’t mean to sound like a Pokémon hater – I love Pokémon, or at least I want to love Pokémon again. But it’s been hard watching Game Freak struggle to transition to home console development during the Switch generation and the way I see it, it’s left with basically two choices: scale the ambition back or take more development time to release fewer games. And given that Pokémon is already describing Legends: Z-A as “an ambitious new entry”, it seems it’s opting for the latter.
Granted, all we know is that Legends: Z-A is coming sometime in 2025. That could very well end up being early in the year (Remember, Legends: Arceus launched in January 2022), and then all the praise I’m giving The Pokémon Company and Game Freak will be moot. An early 2025 release would equal a three-year turnaround since Arceus, which is pretty standard for Game Freak. Gen 5 (2010), Gen 6 (2013), Gen 7 (2016), Gen 8 (2019) and Gen 9 (2022) all had three-year gaps in between. So I’m sincerely hoping the generic 2025 release window and the fact the announcement trailer didn’t actually show any gameplay means the developers and publisher are taking the Scarlet & Violet criticism seriously, and we won’t see Legends: Z-A until later in 2025.
So I’m thrilled Pokémon is taking a break in 2024, and I’m excited that Game Freak is returning to the Legends subseries. But we really know very little about Legends: Z-A, so let’s tackle some other big questions brought on by this announcement.
What Does the “Legends” Branding Actually Mean?
Depending on the day, I sometimes call Pokémon Legends: Arceus my favorite Pokémon game of all time. I fell in love with the revamped focus on catching and collecting Pokémon, and it solidified for me that a Pokémon game revolving around “Gotta catch ‘em all” is more compelling than “I wanna be the very best.” I know that’s an unpopular take, and I understand that the main series isn’t going anywhere, but I was thrilled when Legends: Z-A’s announcement confirmed that Arceus wasn’t just a one-off experiment.
But from the little we know about Z-A, it’s hard to determine if this is really a sequel to Legends: Arceus at all. We know Z-A will take place entirely within the Kalos region’s Lumiose City, and “urban redevelopment” has been teased as Z-A’s theme. Both of those elements are significantly at odds with Legends: Arceus, which was about exploring nature in wide, open areas.
So it’s possible that each entry in the Pokémon Legends series will be its own distinct thing, and the new mechanics I loved in Arceus might not necessarily translate to Z-A. Maybe the Pokémon Legends branding just means a mainline game developed by Game Freak that takes a look at a region years before the modern day Pokémon games, while avoiding the traditional Pokémon formula of gym badges and the Elite Four. Or, maybe Z-A still could incorporate Arceus’ catching mechanics while taking place in the big city. Time will tell but either way, I’m incredibly happy Game Freak is taking yet another crack at approaching Pokémon from a new angle.
What About Unova?
I placed my bet that the next mainline Pokémon game would return to Unova, the setting of Gen 5’s Black & White. Instead, Legends: Z-A is skipping Gen 5 and jumping straight to the region from Gen 6’s X & Y, and in a weird roundabout way giving us the Pokémon Z version we never got. Game Freak is breaking the pattern of its Pokémon remakes and I can’t help but wonder if there is a plan for Gen 5 remakes.
The Pokémon Company outsourced Gen 4 remakes Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl to developer ILCA and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s planning to assign a Black & White remake to a separate studio at some point, ILCA or otherwise. It’s impossible to say if something like that is already in development or not, but I have a good feeling that we will still end up seeing a return to Unova sometime in the next few years.
No, Not Everything Is a Nintendo Switch 2 Hint
We’re only in March and I’m already exhausted from all the Nintendo Switch 2 speculation we’ve endured this year. The internet will seemingly take any little thing and use it to fuel the Switch 2 fire, even in cases where there’s absolutely no reason to.
When it came to the Legends: Z-A trailer, the internet latched onto wording that said Legends: Z-A will launch “simultaneously” worldwide in 2025 for Nintendo Switch “systems”. Some people took this as a hint that Legends: Z-A will release as a cross-gen title on both Switch and Switch 2, and I’d really like to pump the brakes on that.
There’s just no way Nintendo or The Pokémon Company would let any wording confirming Switch 2 slip into its marketing before it has officially announced its next hardware. Nintendo is incredibly careful about its messaging and I assure you this isn’t some slip-up or cryptic hint. And Nintendo always refers to the Switch, OLED, and Lite as the “Nintendo Switch family of systems” or “Nintendo Switch systems”, so that word choice is in no way hinting at unannounced hardware. The Pokémon Twitter account used the exact same wording when talking about Detective Pikachu Returns, which already launched on Nintendo Switch systems last year.
The great detective is back on the case! 🔎 #DetectivePikachuReturns is coming to Nintendo Switch systems on October 6, 2023.https://t.co/OQrBueF6Ap pic.twitter.com/i4aQLAl0ns
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) June 21, 2023
The 2025 release timing really tells us nothing about Nintendo’s next generation plans either way. Pokémon notoriously waits a year or two before transitioning to Nintendo’s new hardware. The 3DS launched in March 2011 and we didn’t see the first mainline 3DS Pokémon games until Fall 2013. For a more recent example, the Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017 and Pokémon didn’t make an appearance until Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! in Fall 2018.
I think the more interesting discussion surrounds what Legends: Z-A’s 2025 release window means for Nintendo’s Fall 2024 release calendar. If recent reports are accurate and Switch 2 isn’t coming until next year, the remainder of Nintendo’s 2024 is looking pretty light. Pokémon is basically always a staple of Nintendo’s holiday lineup and I was expecting nothing different in 2024. But it’s now looking like Pokémon will miss this holiday, leaving me to wonder what Nintendo will fill that gap with. Is it finally time for Metroid Prime 4 or Wind Waker and Twilight Princess? Or will Nintendo pull out something completely new and unexpected? We’ll have to wait and see, but I can tell you for certain Nintendo has at least one unannounced game in its back pocket for this holiday season, and I can’t wait to learn what it is.
What do you think of Pokémon Legends: Z-A? Let us know in the comments.
Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Manager, Playlist Editor, and frequent Super Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.