What direction would you like to see future games take?

[AussieJimmy]

Heyo,

Just curious to see what the community would like to see in games whether it be mechanics, plot, aesthetics, technical stuff etc. And also where you think the games are heading, regardless of persona bias. Here are some of mine

From what I've seen with Legends Arceus and Sword and Shield, I think they might be moving to an entirely open world like The Witcher 3. That's something I'm looking forward to.
I think they will continue to do the Mega Evolution/Dynamxing gimmick and just do something slightly different and just re warp it and change the name.


I would love it if they would have more RNG when it comes to the story and major characters. Like for gym leaders, Let them have a pool of say 20 pokemon in accordance to their type, and every time a new save file is started, the Gym Leaders pokemon change and pick a fresh set. This can go for your rival(s) and Elite Four as well. And maybe with the Elite four, every time you beat them they change up their team and level up a bit, and the AI gets slightly more competitive. Although, I'm not holding my breath for this since It will be a time consuming process.

I would like a difficulty setting that influences NPCs battling style and skills. And if it gets too hard, you permanently drop down a difficulty level that way you can't jump back up and say you beat the game on "Very Hard"

Bring back every pokemon like they used to, rather than just add it to DLC. Keep a national dex locked until post game if necessary. They've done it in the past

 

[LordWayback]

"Evolve backwards" and focus on a open world but set confinement's like you can't go to the elite 4 right away but you can face the gym leaders as you want and focus more on the relationship with your rival and side characters because nothing is worse in games like Pokémon X where they literally show you zygarde and are like oh here's this random legendary that will make you wait until 203- to explain when we make the remakes and here's a random mewtwo with 0 lore other then hiding in the Pokémon village which is protected by the Snowbelle city gym leader it's not like games like platinum where they explain arceus was pissed off at giratina and put him in the distortion world , older games explain every legendary instead of just throwing em at you look at SWSH they'll literally throw a rayquaza at you and not even put the fact that he stopped the battle between groudon and Kyogre and the rest of the raid legendaries

 

[Phoox]

I played through Pokemon Sword recently (my first game since Emerald) and i found the game to be really good, although two issues i had was that the routes didn't feel as immersive as the older games and the "rivals" i don't think are great. I remember first playing through the first few games and i was pretty invested in beating my rival. Gary was the best i think because he also had the bonus of being an arse so you wanted to beat him that much more. Silver and May were also pretty tough, whereas i found the rival in Sword to not even be a challenge and swept his Pokemon aside just like any rando trainer on the pretty short routes. Those are probably the two things i'd like to see improved on for new games i think.

 

[Megan]

I usually prefer a good story over the gameplay in an RPG; Pokemon being one of the few exception. That means I'd prefer them to return back to a more gameplay focused adventure (something they kinda did in SwSh), but with more gameplay options that are not tied to the battle system.

In older games HMs served as an alternate way that incorporated your party into the world itself, as opposed to the detached battle system. It was actually an ok system in the first generation but later on just became more and more of a hurdle. A perfect balance would be where neither exploration nor battle mechanics would interfere with each other too much. In that regard I don't think the HM system as we know it should come back. But at the same time, a different approach that makes exploring with your Pokemon enjoyable while also utilizing the party members outside of battles is very much welcome.

Something that I could see happening are overworld abilities inherent to different Pokemon. Not the move it knows is important, but the Pokemon itself. If it's small it can crawl through tiny spaces, if it's big and a Water Type it can swim on the water, etc.

As for story: I wouldn't mind going back to the first generation. There's no real story other than what you make of it. Sure, you have the basic plot of getting badges and becoming the best and completing the Pokedex. But that's all there is to it. If you want you can incorporate different story bits, but make them optional. In SwSh story bits were handled offscreen. What would have been cooler: you get to choose if you want to do it. If you do, you get a nice side mission, if you don't you just carry on with your main quest, while others do it for you. There might even be different outcomes that change things later on.

Stuff like that I'd like to see in future games.

 

[Pokedream.su]

I think a class based RPG system would do amazing things for a Pokemon game. Instead of being generic person going around catching Pokemon and collecting badges, what if you were a Bug Catcher, a Fisherman, or an Ace Trainer and got the benefits from those classes.

 

[SawkTheWarrior]

Well, for one thing making there be a bit more story would be nice, as well as making a few new types. Maybe something like Air or Light would be cool.

 

[Sheep]

Honestly, I'm not too picky. While a 3D/pixel-based style mix like Octopath Traveler would be something I'd love to see, I understand that's more of a personal desire for my curious self on what it'd be like and not something I'm desperate for. But goodness do I wish they'd give us difficulty options going forward. :( I'm not expecting anything too difficult since Pokémon isn't known for being hard (and I'm honestly not very good at hard games anyway), but giving us a hard mode shouldn't be too tough when they've already shown they can do it in BW2. I'd love to have that in every game going forward... just not after beating the game again though lol. By then it defeats the point to me.

Also, please continue giving us items that can change a Pokémon's ability to its HA/fix its EVs and IVs/etc. I loved that with SwSh. Sometimes I just get mons I really want to use but they're less viable than others for several reasons, and being able to change that is just A+.

Going to +1 rotating, randomized teams though! Would make new playthroughs fun.

 

[Palamon]

Keep building upon the open world concept that Sword/Shield tried doing with the wild area and maybe make Pokemon games less linear again. I'm not saying make everything open world, but make it so we don't have to go in a straight path and fight the gyms/whatever else in the order that is assigned to them. Maybe keep the first and 8th gyms the same, but you can do gyms 2-7 in whichever order you wish.

I think trying to make Pokemon more open world would be a good direction to go in. I do know Legends Arceus is trying that, though, but we'll see.

Also, let us change Pokemon's nicknames from the Pokemon menu instead of having to make an npc do it. More quality of life improvements, too, would be a nice direction to go in, but one can hope.

 

[colours]

my biggest desire for future pokemon games is to give me more of a reason to pick up the game beyond being champion. historically, pokemon games have had pretty... mediocre to rather poor post-games and it saddens me as i remember picking up emerald and b2w2 and going ham on battle frontier/pokemon world tournament, respectively. hell, it doesn't even have to be battle frontier that needs to be brought back. just anything that would keep my interest going long after i've beat the game.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'd like to see continued divergence and experimentation with the spinoffs. It's become painfully apparent by now that Game Freak are incapable of making a good Pokemon game for modern consoles - the dev team is too small, lacks the necessary programming skills, they're in the iron grip of Masuda which stifles any and all creativity, and they probably lack the time and the budget to make a proper video game thanks to TCPI's need to keep the merchandise train chugging on. Because Pokemon is actually about the merchandise and not the video games, lest we forget. But I've basically given up on ever getting another core title that's worth playing, because we haven't had one of those since Platinum.

But that doesn't mean the spinoffs can't continue to be a wonderfully refreshing and enjoyable experience! We have definitely had good spinoffs since Platinum...or at least, ones that take the franchise in a different direction. Put in the hands of a competent developer like Bandai Namco, Monolith Soft, Capcom, etc., we could see some lovely new games with new and innovative gameplay and presentation. Why not have another game like Pokemon Conquest made by the team who did Final Fantasy Tactics? A Warriors game from Koei Tecmo? A Metroidvania from Mercurysteam? Another story driven RPG similar to the Colosseum/XD titles, helmed by Monolith Soft? Pokemon could fit into almost any genre, and it really should. It's under-utilised and strangled by Game Freak's general incompetence, and I'd like to see it continue to blossom beyond their painfully limited capabilities.

 

[Janp]

This would probably work as a spinoff, but I wouldn't mind more focused adventure. I think the fact that we get the whole region in first games of each gen is a bad idea, since there is no room to properly show us each town/city/landmark. I would kill for a game that takes place only in a small section of the region, like 2-3 fleshed out cities and surrounding Routes, with limited number of Pokémon you can catch and captivating story. Alola was perfect place for this in my opinion, since there could be 4 separate stories, one for each island, that could conclude in a grand interdimansional finale.

And I would love to see past regions being re-used aside from remakes.

 

[_confused_piplup_]

alright. What I think is that with gen8 we have learned much about which direction the future games are going to take. First of all, we have swo/shi that since 2019 are currently still the main pokemon game and it's going to be like this till November 2022. We had dlc, which was a new thing for pokemon but we also have a game that is lasting way longer than the older ones. On the other hand we have a new way of "remaking" old games which isn't the main series game we are used to but it's a remastered with a different style + a new game, which in this case is a prequel. My guess for this is that while in the older generations they could translate the old style to the new current game graphics, with these games it was not possible at all.
So, logically, I would say new games are going to be really similar to swo/shi, so they're going to last longer and have dlc and the new remakes are going to be like bd/sp and legends arceus. indeed it would be cool to see other chapters of pokemon legends inspired to other regions.
I think new generations are going to introduce new mechanics that are going to be available only on those games, like it happened with swo/shi where dynamax is strictly connected to the Galar region. idk if they'll move to completely open world, because the mixed mechanics in swo/shi allows to meet more pokemon in the same area, but idk it may eventually happen. For the rest, I think games are going to be fast just like swo/shi or even more to allow competitive players to soon build their teams. i d like to see a hard mode selection, but not the kind of thing we say in b2/w2, it should be way harder for people who want the game to be challenging and a bit longer.
also, I'd like to see more focus on the story, like it could actually and hopefully happen with legends arceus.

 

[Sydian]

i'd like difficulty modes and for tutorials to be optional. and alolan dugtrio should be in every regional dex.

 

[PokemonPotatoHero]

I definitely wish to see difficulty level. Normal, Difficult, Extreme