Pokemon Red and Blue get 3D world update that looks like a brand new game

Pokémon fans can now play a version of the original Pokémon Red and Blue which turns the world into 3D.

The original versions of Pokémon are some of the most beloved games of all time, with worldwide sales of Red, Green, and Blue reaching over 31 million copies since 1996, allowing Pokémon to become one of the most popular franchises of all time.

Following the success of these games, many fans have modded them over time thanks to new romhacks and other ways of modifying the game code to create new experiences.

Now, a new fan-made update for Pokémon Red and Blue has changed the graphics style to resemble a 3D game, with sprites that jump off the screen and make you feel like you’re in Kanto.

As you can see from the video footage, which is embedded below, the game is still played with grid-based movement and 2D sprites to represent characters and certain objects. However, the environment itself is turned into 3D to help them pop out.

This includes buildings and other larger objects too, which become 3D and suddenly feel a lot larger than they used to be in the vanilla version of the games.

The mod is called Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod and it describes this transformation as turning Pokémon Red and Blue’s overworld into a “3D diorama”.

“Terrain is extruded into real geometry, occlusion comes from a depth buffer rather than a y-sort, characters stand as leaning sprite slabs, a shadow map throws real cast shadows across whatever they land on, and an optional tilt-shift pass sells the miniature-model look,” the mod description says.

“Purely presentational. Nothing here reaches collision, movement, triggers or scripts — it changes what the world looks like and nothing about what it is. Battles, menus and cutscenes are untouched; only the free-roam overworld draws differently.”

Read More: Pokémon Diamond and Pearl free remasters put official remakes to shame

Dramatic Shape Voxel Mod for Pokémon Red and Blue should fix you for a few months before Winds and Waves

What makes this good news is that the game will play exactly like the original, except for the new graphical changes. So fans who are intimately familiar with Pokémon Red and Blue won’t have to get used to new gameplay, but rather just the change in visuals.

If you want to download it for yourself, you can head to the project's GitHub page and grab it from there. You'll also need a recompiled version of Pokémon Red and Blue, which can also be found on GitHub.

If anything, this should be a good break from the wait for the next mainline Pokémon games, Winds and Waves, which are currently slated for release in 2027.

Pokémon Winds and Waves will kick off the 10th generation of the series, which will introduce a load of new Pokémon and other features to the franchise. So far, the setting has been revealed—a tropical archipelago inspired by Asia—as well as the three starter Pokémon: Browt, Pombon, and Gecqua.