Pokemon’s Creators Are Ready to Officially Ditch a 30-Year-Old Series Tradition

It seems that big changes may be in store for the Pokémon formula. In a recent talk between Pokémon battle director Shigeki Morimoto and Pokémon Champions game director Kazumasa Iwao, the former said a key reason Game Freak released Champions was to preserve a place for the series' traditional turn-based battles, implying even the mainline games may eventually ditch this approach.

In a translated statement posted by Centro Leaks on X, Iwao said, “One big reason [for Champions]: the battle rules we’ve used through the Pokémon series for so long may gradually start changing as the series moves forward. And there are people who’ve been playing since Red and Green, Gold and Silver — decades. So just saying ‘battles have changed now play the new one’ didn’t feel right.”

Over the last few years, Game Freak has gone with a different approach in the spin-off Legends games (Arceus and Z-A), altering combat so players control their ‘mons in real-time, selecting attacks which then go on cooldown. While the Legends games are a significant departure, the mainline Pokémon titles have still been using the series’ turn-based approach, the most recent being 2022’s Scarlet and Violet.

Pokémon Winds and Waves are the next mainline series installments, and while Game Freak hasn’t officially announced if they will be turn-based or real-time, a tranche of 2024 leaks suggests that they will still be turn-based. However, the formula will likely change significantly, incorporating elements from Arceus and Z-A. Earlier this year, Centro Leaks claimed that instead of being locked into a singles or doubles fight, opposing teams can change mid-battle, with additional opponents entering the fray. One alleged leaked image from the game shows a trainer battling nine Charizards. The game will also apparently introduce over 300 new 'mons, which would be almost double the series' previous high.

Game Freak released Pokémon Champions this April to a somewhat mixed initial reception. It’s a PvP battle sim where players create teams and duke it out online. While the Pokémon competitive scene was a bit hostile to the game at first because it only featured a small subset of Pokémon, many eventually came around, accepting that it works as a great introduction to the competitive scene because it doesn’t include everything. Instead, players have been forced to create all-new teams that differ from Scarlet and Violet’s meta. The game’s monetization is also relatively forgiving for a free-to-play title, making it fairly easy to earn the in-game currency needed to build and train teams.

Still, Iwao’s comments likely struck a nerve, because there are many fans who love turn-based battles but aren’t interested in sweating it out online against a Charizard Y player who keeps using Heat Wave. While the mainline series will remain turn-based for the short term, it seems that may not be true forever.