Is Pokemon capable of pulling a Breath of the Wild and going full open-world?

[HeroLinik]

While Pokemon is considered formulaic, it's started to shake up this formula a bit.

This has been going since Gen V, which began with shelving the traditional "beat eight gyms, E4, champion" in favour of a more developed plot that requires you to defeat Ghetsis and Team Plasma in order to complete the game, as well as allowing you to pick whatever E4 member you wanted rather than being forced in a linear fashion 4 generations before that. While Gen VI returned to the series' roots, some of the changes introduced in the previous generation were still present such as the nonlinear E4 approach, this current generation began shaking more traditions, this time doing away with gyms and HMs (that is if these games don't bring gyms back), favouring island trials and the Poke Ride mechanic.

With these hints it seems pretty likely that a few generations down the line (or possibly even the next one) they'll break the entire formula completely and allow for a full open-world approach. With Breath of the Wild heightening interest in open-world games, I feel as though it might be possible that this could work for Pokemon, and could work by going back to the gyms approach, but allowing the player to tackle whatever gym they want, and levels are scaled in accordance to how many gym badges you have. This could also pave the way for other regions to appear as DLC, thus also satisfying the "remake" need by allowing the regions to be revisited and their leagues challenged, and possibly increase the level cap past 100.

Do you think Pokemon is capable of going open-world anytime soon?

 

[Intelligence]

I am really hoping that it goes full open world. But I also feel that Pok?mon will continue in the same vein due to it being a big, fat cash cow.

 

[pkmin3033]

I sincerely hope not. Whilst open world may work slightly better for Pokemon than it did for Zelda - which was just a giant open world with absolutely nothing in it - changing the formula up to that degree would take years of development, and it would also take the games off handhelds and almost certainly mean we wouldn't be getting annual releases any more. Which would mean fewer games, and thus fewer sales. Which would be bad for Nintendo as well as for us. There is no logical reason for them to do that now or maybe even ever. Handheld gaming isn't going anywhere. Pokemon works very well on handhelds.

Interest in open world titles started looooong before Zelda took a crack at it, too. There are several long running open world series - The Elder Scrolls and Fallout being the two most prominent ones that most people will recognise - that have drummed up interest, and this year has been positively overflowing with them. BOTW is just a very small drop in a very large pond. It created a lot of ripples due to it being a Zelda title, but let's not lose our heads the same way the reviewers did.

It ain't broke, so don't try to fix it. I don't honestly think they're capable of it, because it would require a completely different approach and, when the series has done its utmost to stick to a finely refined formula since its creation...well, don't get your hopes up.

 

[Lunar]

The simple answer, no. I don't know if you're referencing this in regards to USM but I don't think we'll ever see a main series Pokemon game in an open world environment, I wouldn't rule it out for a Switch spinoff though.

 

[Nah]

The series going the open-world route would require two things:

1) A handheld device powerful enough to handle such a game. The main series games have always been on (Nintendo) handhelds and there's no real reason to stop having them be on handhelds. When a handheld with the specs required to pull it off will come about, I wouldn't have any idea, but it will come eventually, probably.

2) Game Freak's willingness to make a drastic change to the Pokemon formula. Besides seeing if the seeming popularity of open-world games will last long enough for them to consider doing so with Pokemon, there's also the fact that over the past 20 years Game Freak has shown that they're fine with the formula and repeating it basically every year. People like to claim that the series has become a bit less formulaic over the past 7 or so years, but really it hasn't changed at all. Any sort of things that might look like they are trying to change the formula are merely things to distract you from this.

And it (the Pokemon formula) sells incredibly well. Relatively "bad" sales for Pokemon are often what some companies wish their games would sell. To put this into perspective, Fire Emblem Awakening, another major Nintendo franchise that has been around since the 90's, and the game that has been heralded as the one that saved the series from its seemingly inevitable demise, has sold an absolutely whopping, massive, gargantuan.....2.1 million copies (as best as I can tell). Crystal and Emerald, the "worst" selling entries in the main series games so far, have sold 6.3 million copies each--roughly 4 times that of Awakening. Fates, the next entry in the Fire Emblem franchise, has yet to hit the 2 million mark.

So why make any big changes to something that sells so (absurdly) well? Couple this with the (understandable) fear that doing so may cause significant backlash--and so a possibly long-term drop in sales--given that humanity tends to not like change, and I personally don't see Game Freak making any huge changes to the games, open-world or otherwise.

I would personally like to see them at least try doing an open-world game once, but I find it unlikely to happen.

 

[ShyRayq]

I mean, looking at things like Pixelmon, which is sort of open world-ish, an Open World Pokemon Game (OWPG) could work, and would definitely be popular. I would say it's pretty much a Pokemon Game, but make the region massive and non-linear. Add hundreds of side-quests to do and bring back all of the wanted features like PWT, Battle Frontier, Following Pokemon, maybe Poffins for an 'alchemy' substitute. Make it online maybe, so you can see other trainers traversing the region. As for the plot, I'm not sure how that would work; maybe how Skyrim/Zelda did it (but I've never played Skyrim so I don't even know how it works there, or if it even has an overarching plot).

Okay, I was hesitant about the idea but now that I've written that out I kind of want one now. Other than stuff I've mentioned, it's a lot for a Pokemon Game honestly. It would be huge. So I'd say: yes Pokemon is capable of it, but the likelihood of it happening is low.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

Maybe next Gen. But I doubt they'll do this for SM... Kind of wish that they would at least allow us to pick the order that we visit the islands this time...

 

[clbgolden]

When they make the jump to the Switch they could pull off an open-world game. Probably wouldn't be as quite open as BOTW, tho.

But I doubt USUM would be open-world. I don't think the 3DS could handle a huge world.

 

[Mab]

I would love to see an open world game! I've seen one or two fangames try to pull this off and I'm making one with a similar style as well, but I'd really like to see what Game Freak could accomplish if they put their minds to it.

I worry that it may be a little above their normal age demographic - I don't think most of the children who Pokemon is marketed towards play many open world games, which is why the game is so linear, and increasingly so since Gen 3. A spinoff aimed at older fans would probably be our only hope at getting something open world like this. Just my two cents.

 

[Aisu]

I think it'd be cool but I don't think it's something Nintendo would be jumping to do since the current formula, even with fifth gen changing it up some, is still working for them.

 

[Mawa]

I would looooove to see an open world Pokemon game! Can be the same formula but not as linear as the games are. For the last games, I feel like it is more and more linear, with a lot of ct scenes and a big story... Which can be good, or my own taste in games I like the the battles and exploring, not really the stories.

 

[Amabilis]

One of Pokemon's big appeals is exploring the world to catch/befriend Pokemon. So I think an open world design can work in that sense. However, if there will be an open world Pokemon game, I hope that the traditional main games can coexist with them. I'm pretty sure fans would feel alienated if they abandoned the traditional JRPG aspect of the mainline games.

That being said, I would like to see a mainline Pokemon game that encourage more exploration. I've notice that there isn't as many options to go off the beaten path in the more recent titles. I'm not sure if Game Freak themselves would make an open world title. BOTW is a big budget game that was in development for a really long time.

 

[Himuraforever]

I personally think an open world game with the mechanics of Pokemon Go would be cool, but I also agree that with how the current games work just fine for sales, it would be a long time coming, if at all.