Game Freak announced Pokemon Winds and Pokemon Waves at the end of the 30th anniversary Pokemon Presents direct. Not much is known so far about Pokemon Winds and Waves beyond what’s been shown in the promotional materials so far. We know they’ll be open-world, we know they’re in a tropical setting, and we know that the players will have slightly different default outfits depending on the game. And, of course, we know the starters.
The lead-up to a new Pokemon release is always filled with theorizing, as shown by fans already analyzing the new Fire-type starter Pombon’s design. The trailer has players wondering about the new open world, how navigating it will work, and the lore and culture of this new region. While the region of Winds and Waves already looks fun to explore, we might not get many answers about its history or culture even after the games release. Previous Pokemon patterns imply that Winds and Waves may be more focused on gameplay and less so on story.
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Pokemon Generation Launches Tend to Take Turns Between Gameplay and Story Focus
Ever since Pokemon Black and White kicked off Generation 5, games taking place in new regions have varied between focusing more on storytelling or gameplay. Black and White stood out at release for emphasizing the plot more than any game before it, to the point where they got direct sequels in Pokemon Black 2 and White 2. When Pokemon X and Y came out the following year, they really brought the franchise into a new era by switching to 3D worlds and introducing the beloved Mega Evolution mechanic. However, their plots were fairly standard “be the very best” tales aside from AZ and Z-A‘s detective Emma, neither of which was the main focus of the games.
Mega Evolution is the only new battle mechanic introduced since Pokemon X and Y to appear in multiple regions in the mainline games: Kalos, Hoenn, Alola, and Kanto.
Pokemon Sun and Moon took after the Unova games with their heavy focus on story. In fact, the cutscene-to-gameplay ratio is something of a joke in the fandom – some players who genuinely were there to catch ‘em all or be the very best were frustrated by how much time they had to spend learning about Lillie’s family drama. And while they did rehaul the Gym system and introduced Z-moves, the Island Trial format and Z-moves haven’t returned in any games after Alola.
In contrast, Pokemon Sword and Shield‘s Wild Area and later Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra in the DLCs were when the games first dipped their toes into boss raids and open-world mechanics. Generation 8’s writing, however, did a bad job of justifying its stakes with its villain’s motivations and put more spotlight on the player’s journey to, again, be the very best.
And then we have Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. The first real open-world titles tried to evolve the best parts of Sword and Shield’s gameplay by giving the player much more to do and giving them the freedom to explore a much larger map than just the Wild Area. But Paldea’s performance issues will go down in history, forever marking it as the time Pokemon tried and failed to make its own version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While how much the glitches and graphics hurt the player experience is, of course, subjective, Scarlet and Violet‘s plots were well-received. Each plotline really engaged the player with the game’s cast, and the finale stands out not just among Pokemon games, but among JRPGs as a whole.
Winds and Waves Have the Potential to Do What Scarlet and Violet Couldn’t
Since we already know that Winds and Waves will be open-world titles, they’ll hopefully build on the groundwork of Generation 9 to make something truly fun – and importantly, smooth – to play. The mysterious board the protagonists are holding in their official art could very well play a role in world exploration, and the game could even start with all methods of travel unlocked. This way, the player could truly have a Breath of the Wild amount of freedom to do what they want in the new region from the start.
Mainline Pokemon Games Playable on the Nintendo Switch 2
- Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen
- Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!
- Pokemon Sword and Shield
- Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus
- Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
- Pokemon Legends: Z-A
- Pokemon Winds and Waves
The environments – especially the water – look great in the trailers, so hopefully they stay that way as development progresses. But more than anything, here’s hoping Winds and Waves takes on the open-world mechanics that Scarlet and Violet didn’t. Let us enter houses again. Give us side quests with more substance than the busywork of Pokemon Legends: Z-A‘s side missions. And please, please, give us level scaling this time. Since Generation 10 has at least another 10 months in the oven before release, though, it’s very likely getting more polish than its predecessor did, and that’s a good sign to me.
- Released
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2027
- Multiplayer
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Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
