Two New Pokémon Games Announced For This Year, Here's What We Know

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is still wet behind the ears, and already The Pokémon Company has announced two more Pokémon games to come out this year. These would be the fourth and fifth games to come out within a 12 month period, with the other two being December's Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

The two new games Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet will form the ninth generation of the mainline series games, and will unsurprisingly be Nintendo Switch exclusive. The new games promise a more semi-open world style gameplay like Arceus, but with the Pokémon Sword and Shield catching mechanics. That is to say that Pokémon will appear in the overworld, but you have to engage in battle in order to catch them.

If you want to see the trailer for yourself it's right here.

The protagonists of the new games look quite a bit younger than in recent 3D Pokémon entries looking to be around ten years old which is more like in the earlier games. Several Pokémon were also shown in the trailer including; Pikachu, Swablu, Larvitar, Serviper, Stonjourner, Starly, Hoppip, Applin, Petilil, Psyduck, Drifloon, Combee, Meowth, Clauncher, Pelipper, Blissey, Magnemite, Lucario, and Dratini.

All of the Pokémon shown appear in their original regional forms so alternate forms are not confirmed. The three new starter Pokémon have also been revealed. They are Sprigatito, the grass cat Pokémon, Fuecoco, the fire croc Pokémon, and Quaxly, the duckling Pokémon. They are also confirmed to be the standard grass, fire, and water, starting type line up.

The combination of the root words for the starters as well as the look from the trailer suggest that the new region is set in Spain. Pokémon has previously been set in both the UK and France which are both close by, so this fits with the recent themes.

The last thing we know about the new Pokémon games is that Game Freak plan to have them finished before the end of 2022, likely in time for the holiday period. So just in case you thought we didn't get enough Pokémon games lately, there's more coming really soon.