Pokemon Winds and Waves haven’t even released yet, and already Gen 11 has a launch window it’s targeting. While Pokemon Winds and Waves have a release window of late 2027, the following generation of Pokemon games has already begun development, according to newly leaked information. This leak corroborates the internal roadmap for Game Freak’s work on the Pokemon series up through 2030.
Although Pokemon Winds and Waves are at the forefront of the franchise as the next official games, having been revealed back in February, Pokemon fans already have a sense of where the future of the series is headed. Leaks indicate that Game Freak has big plans for the Pokemon franchise, and it all seems to be happening in a short timespan. This may be controversial among some fans, given that much of the criticism leveled against the modern Pokemon series is the short turnaround time between new entries, and that doesn’t seem to be stopping with Gen 11.
Pokemon Gen 11 Started Development in 2024, Targeting 2030 Launch
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Image via The Pokemon Company -
Image via Game Freak
According to leaked documents shared on Twitter by Centro Leaks, Pokemon Gen 11 began development back in 2024 and is still on track for a 2030 release. Typically, the next generation of Pokemon games begins development once the previous generation is released; Winds and Waves began development in 2022 after Scarlet and Violet launched. However, due to Winds and Waves delays, Gen 11 started early prototyping in 2024, meaning it will likely stay on track for its 2030 release date.
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Despite coming from leaks, the information surrounding Pokemon Gen 11 and the future of the franchise comes from official Game Freak documents that were included in the massive TeraLeak last October. As such, it’s already established that Game Freak has been planning to release Pokemon Gen 11 in 2030, with other titles releasing in between it and Winds and Waves. While that might seem a bit close to Winds and Waves‘ 2027 launch, having a few extra years of development time could result in a better product in the end.
Between Pokemon Winds and Waves and Gen 11, the leaked roadmap from Game Freak includes a variety of other projects at various stages of development:
- Pokemon Winds and Waves DLC
- Project Ringo — Said to be the next Pokemon Legends game set in the Galar Region’s distant past.
- Project Seed — Allegedly an ambitious multi-region MMO-like game featuring Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Kitakami all in one interconnected world.
Given the diversity of projects on Game Freak’s plate for the Pokemon series, it’s not surprising to learn that Gen 11 has already started development. The scale of these projects sounds like a lot to squeeze into a three-year span, but it becomes much more doable if most or all of these games have been in development for a while longer than fans expect. Pokemon Winds and Waves will have been in development for close to five years by the time the Gen 10 games are released, so it remains to be seen if that development time results in games that are better received by fans.
- Released
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2027
- Multiplayer
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Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
