[Sword & Shield] How much news should we get prior to release?

[PkmnTrainerElio]

Personally, with the huge news dump we got prior to Sun and Moon releasing, I felt it ruined the game, over half of the Pokémon were revealed, all the Alola forms were revealed, all evolution stages for the starters had been revealed and pretty much half of the game was revealed (and this wasn't even through leaks).

With Sword and Shield, I honestly don't think we should have a repeat of what happened prior to Sun and Moon. I think they should reveal stuff enough that we can speculate about it, rather than give us every naked detaeil about the stuff they reveal.

 

[lilaë21]

I would be fine with knowing most importantly if there are many areas not related to the plot to explore (I don't want to know what these areas are, just whether they're in), and the list of exclusives and other version-dependant stuff. I'd be fine with not knowing anything else beyond this, but I'd still be interested to some extent about the final stages of the starters and the amount of new Pokémon. Anything else is stuff I'd prefer to avoid discovering before release.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

According to Pokeshopper, a very accurate merchandise website that has a lot of future releases, they are going to have a ton of promotional material for the games, more than other.

That being said, once we start getting new info, we will probably get more every month similar to Sun and Moon.

 

[bobandbill]

Oh, I agree. We got too much info in SM's lead-up imo. Please leave some things like Pokemon to be a surprise! (Also don't let them be datamined in a demo, please.)

Also agreed on side game stuff. If we can have more content on the level of gen 4 or B2W2, for example, that's side content or postgame, that'd be grand.

 

[JoyStar]

What I think we'll officially get: the starter evolution lines, some of the Gyms, the name of the starting city, the villain team, the basic plot without going into major detail, any major new mechanics, and the box legendaries.

What we'll get if leakers datamine: absolutely everything

 

[PkmnTrainerElio]

Oh, I agree. We got too much info in SM's lead-up imo. Please leave some things like Pokemon to be a surprise! (Also don't let them be datamined in a demo, please.)

Also agreed on side game stuff. If we can have more content on the level of gen 4 or B2W2, for example, that's side content or postgame, that'd be grand.

THIS!

They gave us way too much info for Su/Mo and we were hoping the games would be much bigger than what they were, that's why we were so desperate for a post game.

 

[alisaie]

Pretty much agree with everyone this whole thread. SM gave us too much information (plus the datamine) that nothing was really surprising or exciting by the time the games came out. I would love to see some Pokemon, a gym or two, and a general idea of the plot. Plus the rival, professor, and evil team. But other than that I don't wish for any more information without risk of it being too much and the discovery of a surprise won't be there anymore.

 

[clbgolden]

Like everyone else has said, recent Pokémon games have had a bad habit of revealing too much about the games. IMO, the perfect amount of pre-release content revealed would be:

-A little more than half of the new Pokémon in the games (maybe like, 60%? I dunno.)
-If there are new Megas/Regional Variants/whatever, then around half of those should be revealed as well
-All of the version exclusives (preferably these should be revealed early on so people can decide which version they want faster)
-Only one of the new legendaries that isn't one of the boxart legends
-A few of the names of the towns/cities in the game
-Just the first four or five gyms and its leaders
-All of the new/returning mechanics in the games (since these tend to be shown in them early on anyways)
-Starter mid evos (I honestly would prefer if they showed the final evos during pre-release, but I seem to be the minority there soooooooooo)
-Very basic plot details; the main characters, evil team, etc., and nothing else
-The post-game Battle Facility not like there's anything special about them anyways, but keep the other post-game stuff secret
-Only around one to two trailers a month (the constant force-feeding of news with Sun and Moon/LGPE was exhausting)

 

[wakachamo]

Personally, with the huge news dump we got prior to Sun and Moon releasing, I felt it ruined the game, over half of the Pokémon were revealed, all the Alola forms were revealed, all evolution stages for the starters had been revealed and pretty much half of the game was revealed (and this wasn't even through leaks).

With Sword and Shield, I honestly don't think we should have a repeat of what happened prior to Sun and Moon. I think they should reveal stuff enough that we can speculate about it, rather than give us every naked detaeil about the stuff they reveal.

Agreed! This is not sarcasm: I miss the laughably slow pace of news during these game announcements. I remember back when HeartGold/SoulSilver were still early in the pipeline—getting 8 seconds of footage was like this groundbreaking thing that The Pokémon Company itself hyped up to a hilarious extent, but actually genuinely got people talking about it for days (if not weeks) on end.

 

[bobandbill]

Agreed! This is not sarcasm: I miss the laughably slow pace of news during these game announcements. I remember back when HeartGold/SoulSilver were still early in the pipeline—getting 8 seconds of footage was like this groundbreaking thing that The Pokémon Company itself hyped up to a hilarious extent, but actually genuinely got people talking about it for days (if not) weeks on end.

Ah, I remember those Pokemon Sunday episodes which including HGSS segments. People would speculate for ages about those pipes in New Bark Town and if they had to do with the Underground, and then if we'd see all Pokemon follow you. (Amusingly we were discussing that surely they wouldn't make models for all 400+ Pokemon to follow you... and yet knowing they have 700+ models with walk/run animations in SM, we seemingly won't see the feature in SS.)

We got things slowly but the hype was done right, and we had so much to discover when we got the games ourselves.

 

[colours]

ideally: less so than SM
realistically: probably about as much as SM

CoroCoro scans each month and trailers and whatnot. An argument can be made that the era for slow-paced news (as far as Pokemon gaming goes anyway) is over and a ton is going to get thrown at us to make sure these games sell as much as possible.

That may be a cynical perspective, but I see it as likely.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

I know I posted already, but I think these are a list of things we should know before release.

All Starters, although spread it out. Release the 2nd stage in the summer and the last in October. If not for the extremely early leak, we wouldn't have known the final stage pokemon till like a week before the games which I personally think is too close to the release date.

Box Legends, we will probably get in April or May.

I think we should know the names of the rivals, Professor and a few town names fairly early on.

I think the Evil Team should be revealed a month or so after the rivals.

And depending on how many pokemon will be, I am guessing 100 with some pokemon similar to Lycanroc/Oricorio. So I think 5 to 7 a month is ok starting in June/July maybe 2 or 3 in May. There could be more per month depending on how many pokemon there are.


As for SM, most pokemon were revealed, not all of them. That is why we had such a massive empty news period in September and October which annoyed people. And every Alolan Pokemon was revealed except for Geodude line, which got datamined.

I personally would rather have all pokemon revealed before the games come out or at least most, but I don't think they all need to be release seemingly all at once which is what happened in SM.

 

[PkmnTrainerElio]

I know I posted already, but I think these are a list of things we should know before release.

All Starters, although spread it out. Release the 2nd stage in the summer and the last in October. If not for the extremely early leak, we wouldn't have known the final stage pokemon till like a week before the games which I personally think is too close to the release date.

Box Legends, we will probably get in April or May.

I think we should know the names of the rivals, Professor and a few town names fairly early on.

I think the Evil Team should be revealed a month or so after the rivals.

And depending on how many pokemon will be, I am guessing 100 with some pokemon similar to Lycanroc/Oricorio. So I think 5 to 7 a month is ok starting in June/July maybe 2 or 3 in May. There could be more per month depending on how many pokemon there are.


As for SM, most pokemon were revealed, not all of them. That is why we had such a massive empty news period in September and October which annoyed people. And every Alolan Pokemon was revealed except for Geodude line, which got datamined.

I personally would rather have all pokemon revealed before the games come out or at least most, but I don't think they all need to be release seemingly all at once which is what happened in SM.

The apparent final evo leak is fake, it was done by a Korean artist.

 

[Miss Wendighost]

I would like to know some of the things that are core to the game itself such as the villain team, but not too much to the point where the surprise is ruined.

 

[Palamon]

I want at least two new Pokemon a month, at bare minimum. Coro Coro usually has that covered for me, so, that'll do.

 

[Yue Han]

I'm expecting a lot to be revealed at a healthy flow once they get properly going with building hype. It's been their method for a while now.

 

[PageEmp]

Maybe at least 1 reveal a month

 

[Janp]

I hated how much they revealed for SM. I was so hyped for that game only to find out that the revealed stuff was 99 % of the game's content (and that most of that was a lot worse that it looked in the trailers). So I would like to see minimum news to be shared before the release. Like 2 new Pokémon and small info about the region and story.

 

[Ducolamia]

Maybe at least 1 reveal a month

I agree. I think slowing down the releases should be optimal. It seems that this year they might be condensing some info since we already got the region trailer and starter trio. When in S/M we didn't get the starters until later.

I would honestly prefer that they release only one trailer a month or every couple of weeks for advertisement. I have no doubts that the game will sell very well (unless they mess it up to huge proportions) so I think they can get away with withholding some info. The next major thing I'll be excited for is E3 for a showcase.

What we should know is:

Some pokemon (Not more than half the dex)

Main Mechanics (other than battling - how does this control on the switch?)

Some lore

Legendaries (obviously)

Any Extra Cool Stuff

 

[mysticalflute]

Ideally, I'd like to see:

- Stater evolutions
- Box legendaries
- Evil Team/basic info
- Rival
- Professor
- 20-30% of the Pokedex.

I know people are annoyed with GameFreak for releasing so much stuff, but most of my ire lies with the dataminers who spoil everything.