With Pokémon Sun and Moon out today, focus has now shifted to earlier reports that the Nintendo Switch will have a new Mario, Pokémon, and Zelda game released within six months of the console’s life. We already know about Zelda: Breath of The Wild, and the tentatively “Mario NX”, now we have the next Pokémon game to speculate over.
Eurogamer reports that sources close to the say that the next game is codenamed Pokémon Stars. This game will be the third game in gen seven, making it part of Sun and Moon. This isn’t unusual, as longtime fans of the series will know, in the beginning, and up until the Diamond and Pearl years each generation got a third game set in the same region. Usually, these games would have some improvement like the addition of animations in Crystal, or loosely playing as Ash in Yellow, and focus on the third major legendary in the game. It wasn’t until Black and White that Game Freak decided to shake up the formula with the series’ first direct sequel before eschewing the practice all together with X & Y.
Pokémon Stars will be the first main Pokémon game to come to a Nintendo home console and is being developed in-house with Game Freak taking the lead. Most Pokémon games that saw a home console release were farmed out to other developers and were widely considered “meh”.
Eurogamer also says that we may have already gotten a look at the Nintendo Switch version. Back when Sun and Moon were first teased we got a look at a Pikipek model in development. Sources say that it was actually the Switch version being worked on in the photo.
Nothing has been confirmed, but most likely the Switch version will feature all the same locations and creatures except prettier thanks to the extra power. The story beats might be different and some of the trials could change as is the tendency with these types of Pokémon games.
The Nintendo Switch doesn’t have a release date yet, but on January 13th Nintendo will hold a conference to discuss the finer points of the console like specs, price point, and release date.