The Pokemon Company and series developer Game Freak have been pumping out titles left, right, and center recently, most notably releasing two major entries in 2022.Pokemon Legends: ArceusandPokemon Scarlet & Violetwere two massive titles from Game Freak, both of which launched within the same 12 months, a feat that is rare for game development.
It didn’t come without consequences though, as the performance and visuals of both titles were widely criticised at launch, with Scarlet & Violet being the more controversial of the two. While it was never confirmed, it’s widely believed that Game Freak’s hectic release schedule is one of the major contributors to these performance issues. In a new roundtable interview, The Pokemon Company has hinted that the series' “constant” release schedule needs to change in order to continue delivering quality titles.
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Speaking toComicBook, chief operating officer of The Pokemon Company Takato Utsunomiya was asked whether it had a set release schedule in whichPokemongames had to abide by. Utsunomiya explained that while the company has regularly released Pokemon games on a fairly steady basis, he also states that there are “more and more conversations” within the company about how it can continue to do this without sacrificing quality.
“I think in general, if you look at the past, the path we’ve taken up until now has been this constant release, always regularly releasing products on a fairly fixed kind of a cadence, you might say,” said Utsunomiya via his translator. “Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that’s how we’ve operated up until now.”
“I think we’re still operating in that way, but there’s more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this, while making sure that we’re ensuring really quality products are also being introduced.”
Even the most ardent Pokemon defenders out there, keen to point out that the series has never been defined by its visuals, have to admit that Scarlet & Violet were complete disasters on launch. Efforts have been made to improve performance since release, and the game’s upcoming DLC expansions look a little better than the base game in that regard, but it’s been clear for a while that something is very wrong within Game Freak.
Hopefully, these comments from Utsunomiya mean that those working on Pokemon are finally getting more time between future installments, especially now that the only releases in the near future are The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk expansions. I’m sure I can speak for all Pokemon fans when I say that we’re perfectly happy waiting another year or two if it means that Game Freak isn’t crunching and it can ship a game that actually performs well.
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