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News Pokémon Legends Z-A announced for Nintendo Switch, releasing in 2025

Tye said:
Hasn’t Khu admitted to fucking with people? Like, apparently Khu did legitimately leak the code name for Legends: Z-A…but that’s it, and all the Unova stuff was just Khu fucking with everyone (or perhaps they only knew the code name and nothing else and had just assumed it would be Unova related, and after the reveal they tried to pass it all off as a “joke”).
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Yeah it's not the first time he's fucked with people however usually it's one of posts and he's been talking about unova games for over 6 months.

Atm I'm not really trusting anything he says until it gets verified however pyoro mentioning possible unova games definitely suggests khu might not have been completely lying
 
Khu knew of one project name and guessed that it corresponded to a Unova game. It strikes me as unlikely that Khu would have both knowledge of a project name that did not correspond to their known info and knowledge of a project that did not correspond to their known project name. If they know of a Unova remake in the works, there's no reason for them to not know its project name or that it's distinct from LZA, particularly if it's believed to be releasing this year.
 
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Darkred401 said:
Yeah it's not the first time he's fucked with people however usually it's one of posts and he's been talking about unova games for over 6 months.

Atm I'm not really trusting anything he says until it gets verified however pyoro mentioning possible unova games definitely suggests khu might not have been completely lying
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I mean, Khu has basically admitted it:

 
Two things can be simultaneously true about Khu. He can be a legit insider while also not offering any particularly useful information.

He's so consistently vague and intentionally confusing that we really have no reason to pay him any attention at this point.
 
Tye said:
I mean, Khu has basically admitted it:

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I'm aware of those but I'm still unsure whether unova happening at all is a troll. It's pretty clear that the weeks leading up to the presents he was fucking with people to expect unova but when he says 2 sides of the same coin I feel it's unclear whether it was a complete lie or half lie
 
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Khu is an idiot and also useless since no one ever knows for sure what his "hints" are about.

Speculating over his hints is the same as speculating without them.
 
ziggyrivers said:
Assuming we get anything Pokemon this year, could be Gen 6 HD Remasters?

Or a complete curveball like how Legends Z-A was and we'll be getting, not an Explorers of the Sky remake, but rather an entirely new original Mystery Dungeon game

Or Pokemon Warriors
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I've been wanting to try a Mystery dungeons game so I'd be down.

But what I really want is a pokemon Conquest
 
BW are not happening this year, period.

Khu was full of shit, he probably had no info about PLZA so he placed his bets on Unova remakes because everyone was hyping themselves about them, but they were never happening. Took a shot, missed.

Also gonna take a wild guess here and say Pyoro has no sources on Pokémon at all, and in fact, no sources on anything that isn't getting announced imminently. We have no reason to believe otherwise.
 
team TCG Pocket is this year's game. since the presents are separate from Directs, they don't have to all be for Nintendo systems. especially when they announced a major game for switch anyway
 
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Tye said:
I mean, Khu has basically admitted it:

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lol sure. Why should we take his word at face value. And even if he was just "trolling", instead of not knowing anything outside a codename, what difference does it make? His hints are false regardless of reason and can safely be ignored going forward.
 
Frankly at this point the most likely thing is a gen 10 in 2026 for the 30 years of the saga. Everything else seems completely open.

Maybe Z-A was always planned in 2025, maybe it is delayed for a crossgen release, maybe some remake is still planned for 2024 or then for the end of 2025.

We don’t know that yet. On the other hand, as I said on another thread, if I am Nintendo and I know that this time I have no breath of the wild, well I think I would carefully consider how to use Pokémon to accompany my next hardware.

I think they will definitely pay attention to the technical state of Gen 10. For the rest we must not forget the function of Pokémon since its creation so if they have to make a remake even outsourced, it will in my opinion be more of what Nintendo needs, which weighs within TPC.

Pokémon has always been the exception to the principle that Nintendo leaves as much time as possible to develop games.
 
Getting nothing this year is the least likely option. We never get a whole year without a Pokémon release on Switch.

There will be something. We just don't know what yet.
 
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Triistan said:
It makes sense to announce PLZA at pokemon day and give to an outsourced remake a shorter marketing cicle imho.
After the BDSP backlash is plausible that they want to announce it when it's as polished as possible.

I don’t know if @Goopy Snail is reliable but I wouldn’t be surprised if TPC will release an outsourced project this fall (gen5, gen2 or a XY remaster).
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TPC do not want to miss out on a holiday release. It has been in the works since BDSP and is being given more time to cook after the backlash from BDSP.
 
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Goopy Snail said:
Im just going off my sources. Pokemon games have not always been shown on pokemon day and legends ZA may not be early 2025.
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I would agree with this point if the years that had mainline games announced outside Pokémon Day had a Pokémon Day Presentation (Pokémon Direct in this case).

Whenever there is a Pokémon Day presentation they have opted to make announcements about the main series games there

There was no Pokémon Day Presentation in 2017 or 2018 which is when Pokémon Ultra Sun/Moon and Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee was announced. Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire were released before they started celebrating Pokémon Day in 2016 so it can't be used as a data point.

Edit: about the point of giving time to polish up the visuals which I've seen a few people bring up, they have revealed games without any gameplay before.

Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Pokémon Sun/Moon, Pokémon Sword/Shield and now Pokemon Legends: Z-A were all announced without gameplay footage. In Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire's case the only thing shown until June that year was the box art for the games while Sun/Moon had some concept art shown.

Even if they want to announce something later in the year, factors like they have announced games later in the year or they are waiting for it to be more polished to show footage aren't reliable especially when the presently announced title was has a rather vague release date and this hypothetical game is supposed to be their 2024 project.

Edit 2: To further explain my reasoning.
 
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Quoting myself from the other thread:

Leo said:
Having outsourced Unova remakes this early and sandwiched between gen 9 and gen 6 this year makes no sense at all.

The way TPC operates is that every mainline game is the spearhead of a bigger marketing campaign promoting that gen. They are always focusing on one gen, and everything is carefully coordinated. Right now we are still on their gen 9 era, anime is gen 9, TCG is gen 9, games (DLC) are gen 9. Next year, with PLZA, it will be gen 6.

Whenever they release a remake, they have another campaign focusing on that gen. They will have new Pokémon forms, an anime tie in, a TCG set, related merch etc.

If Unova remakes were coming, there would be all of that, and even if it was an outsourced game, there would be something made by GF as well because they want to have new Pokémon forms there. Sure, we only had one instance of an outsourced game so far, but that one tells us GF is incredibly conservative about outsourcing, they want to keep all creative efforts in house. BDSP had 0 new stuff, it was restricted to simply copying the original games 1:1. No new forms, no new characters, no new designs for the existing characters, they didn't even get new official artwork, which all previous remakes did. Instead they went with those hideous renders on the covers, the first time we ever had a mainline Pokémon game without hand drawn art on the cover.

Now, do you really think GF would waste an entire marketing push on gen 5, one of the most popular generations right now, on a single outsourced game without new designs and content they would use to sell merch and have tie ins on other media? Especially with PLZA already announced for next year which means they will inevitably start a marketing cycle focused on gen 6 then, mega evolution and all the inevitable new forms from that game with accompanying anime and TCG? Why would they waste Unova in such a terrible sandwiched slot, just to sell copies of the game? Yes, it would sell a lot of copies, but still a fraction of the revenue they usually have considering the multimedia thing.

That's just not how they operate, and I would be baffled to find otherwise.
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I don't really understand why they'd move abruptly the marketing/anime stuff from gen 9 to gen 5 for a short time then to gen 6.

I think Pokémon X and Y remasters this year would make the most sense if they want so badly to have a holiday title because that one would be in line with the Legends game coming next year.
 
Marce-chan said:
I don't really understand why they'd move abruptly the marketing/anime stuff from gen 9 to gen 5 for a short time then to gen 6.

I think Pokémon X and Y remasters this year would make the most sense if they want so badly to have a holiday title because that one would be in line with the Legends game coming next year.
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To be fair, the anime is pretty flexible in this regard nowadays. Both Journeys (the last series with Ash) and Horizons are world tour series where all regions are visited, regardless of what's currently being "promoted". They could go to Unova briefly and then Kalos and it wouldn't feel weird at all.

That being said, most of the "major" story focus is given to regions and Pokémon that tie in with current games. Horizons, for instance, has primarily been centered around Terapagos from the Scarlet and Violet DLC.
 
There have been tons of rumblings about this from so many directions lately. It might be nothing, but we have to take it seriously as a real possibility.

Personally I'd be hyped for BW remakes in any form.
 
Goopy Snail said:
TPC never makes sense. No one predicted Legends ZA. The only thing that you can guarantee on is they like to make money. They are not going to miss this holiday I can guarantee you that.
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Legend Z-A may very well have been positioned as a 2024 year-end game and then shifted, especially based on the switch 2. Or not at all. We have no idea.

Nothing can be said with certainty in fact. On the other hand I agree with the idea that it is curious to make a game on Kalos if you also planned a Unova remake.
 
I'm starting to think that Game Freak and The Pokémon Company have learned a lot of lessons from the releases of BDSP and PLA, as well as SV.



Probably, BDSP was commissioned after PLA's development began, and they outsourced it to ILCA as a classic remake just in case the fanbase didn't appreciate the approach taken with PLA in the Sinnoh region.



The result was the most (PLA) and least (BDSP) acclaimed games of the series since BW. Additionally, in 2022, they damaged the brand with the poor state of SV at launch.



Now, I can see them addressing these issues in the following ways:



- Give ILCA more time; perhaps imho they didn't have three years for BDSP. It's possible it wasn't planned until PLA's development became too "strange" or risky for a remake. With a 2024 Christmas release, they will likely have had three years of development for a new remake, and they'll reveal it when they're ready.



- Space out releases and give more time to Game Freak. PLZA could now have 3.5-4 years of development, and Generation 10 will benefit from the same development time, with a release as early as 2026.



- Avoid cannibalizing releases too close together. BDSP and PLA were both main Gen 4 games released simultaneously. Perhaps a PLA release in December 2022 could have benefited the sales of both games (and the SV development).



- Avoid releasing two games of the same generation in a short timeframe. If ILCA releases a Gen 5 remake this year, it won't be overshadowed by Gen 6 PLZA hype, and The Pokémon Company (TPC) will have two different generations to push merchandise, the anime, the trading card game, etc., while Game Freak works on Gen 10.



So, I'm starting to feel confident about a BW release this year and PLZA in the second half of 2025. They announced PLZA first because otherwise, everyone would have asked, "Where is Legends Kyurem?" "Why only a mediocre ILCA remake?" as they did when they first announced Gen 8 at E3 2017 and released LGPE in 2018, with Pokémon Sword and Shield coming only in 2019. In this way, they made the best marketing choice, in my opinion.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
that damage buffed out quite quickly
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Exactly.

Sword/Shield, BDSP, Legends Arceus, and Scarlet/Violet have proved multiple times over that the core Pokemon crowd will show up no matter what. All of those releases were maligned by the larger gaming community for one reason or another (yes, even PLA).

To the people who are actually buying the games, I do not think they consider the brand damaged. I still see casual fans (the not terminally online) recommending BDSP as a fun traditional Pokemon game.

That would be like saying last year's COD that bombed critically damaged the COD brand. Of course it didn't. It was the second best selling game of last year.
 
I think something is in the works but idk if it's unova, bdsp's reception was pretty negative but it sold as much as legends arceus so i feel like the solution would be to improve them than just completely scrap them
 
ILikeFeet said:
that damage buffed out quite quickly
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FiniteInfinities said:
Exactly.

Sword/Shield, BDSP, Legends Arceus, and Scarlet/Violet have proved multiple times over that the core Pokemon crowd will show up no matter what. All of those releases were maligned by the larger gaming community for one reason or another (yes, even PLA).

To the people who are actually buying the games, I do not think they consider the brand damaged. I still see casual fans (the not terminally online) recommending BDSP as a fun traditional Pokemon game.

That would be like saying last year's COD that bombed critically damaged the COD brand. Of course it didn't. It was the second best selling game of last year.
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If Nintendo acknowledges on social media that they are taking 'seriously the players feedback', it means they feel the release of SV damaged the brand imho.

Honestly, I don't recall Nintendo admitting problems with a game they've published.

However, it wasn't the main focus of the post 😁
 
Triistan said:
If Nintendo acknowledges on social media that they are taking 'seriously the players feedback', it means they feel the release of SV damaged the brand imho.

Honestly, I don't recall Nintendo admitting problems with a game they've published.

However, it wasn't the main focus of the post 😁
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Well, Nintendo doesn't develop mainline Pokemon and nothing ever came to ScVi patch-wise to fix the frame rate, so I'm not so sure they actually did anything with our feedback lol.

But you do bring up a good point with Nintendo not being happy about the state of Pokemon, even if TPC is. I imagine if they had full control of the brand it would be managed very differently.

I just don't really think that the brand is damaged in such a way that it will have a major effect sales.
 
FiniteInfinities said:
I just don't really think that the brand is damaged in such a way that it will have a major effect sales.
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Nah, like the “dexit” didn’t damage SwSh ( ;D ) but with SV and Nintendo tweet (was also discussed during a Q&A with investors) seemed to me that something could change this time (for the better hopefully!).
 
Triistan said:
Nah, like the “dexit” didn’t damage SwSh ( ;D ) but with SV and Nintendo tweet (was also discussed during a Q&A with investors) seemed to me that something could change this time (for the better hopefully!).
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one would expect better optimization next time around, yea. but that doesn't constitute as "brand damage" as most people use it (which is in regards to sales)
 
Darkred401 said:
I think something is in the works but idk if it's unova, bdsp's reception was pretty negative but it sold as much as legends arceus so i feel like the solution would be to improve them than just completely scrap them
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They almost certainly made more money from BDSP than LA. Roughly the same number of units sold on a fraction of the budget
 
ILikeFeet said:
but that doesn't constitute as "brand damage" as most people use it (which is in regards to sales)
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In branding there's something called goodwill. This word means intangible value that a business builds over time through its reputation, customer loyalty, and brand recognition. As you saw there, reputation, customer loyalty and brand recognition are essential to the concept of goodwill, and goodwill is paramount for a brand. If another Pokemon Scarlet Version and Violet Version type of scenario were to happen with the Pokemon brand, then:
  • Reputation - Mainline Pokemon game will be attached to the idea that they are a technical mess and not a quality, finished product;
  • Customer loyalty - at some point, their consumer base could dwindle, obviously affected by reputation;
  • Brand Recognition - similar to reputation, the brand could be associated to a product being of lesser quality.
Like it has been stated before, sales can't be a 100% reliable barometer for the "indifference" of the technical mess aspect of the Paldea games because, if GameFreak were to continue with this modus operandi, the consequence of this philosophy must be measured in the long run.

---------

That said, this doesn't mean that I think that the Pokemon brand is weak right now, but it could certainly be damaged some more if another Gen 9 video game scenario were to happen.
 
I think an important thing to bring up is that from what I've seen on Deku Deals at least, SV has been going on sale more frequently than most Nintendo titles. I got my copy of Violet at $45 8 months after launch, and even saw a price of $30 for Scarlet around the same timeframe. BDSP and PLA also saw notable discounts to $40 in May, 6 and 4 months after launch respectively, and I've seen BDSP specifically go for $30 multiple times. The sales figures of all these games are still strikingly high enough that they're impressive regardless and I obviously can't speak for territories outside of the US. However, I wouldn't be surprised if TPC is connecting the increasing reliance on discounts to move inventory + the franchise's growing reputation as the industry's whipping boy and getting concerned about the road Pokemon is headed down.
 
Zemya said:
We didn't have Pokémon Presents back then, the Pokémon Directs weren't necessarily on anniversaries iirc
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Imo its pretty clear they mainly wanted to reveal/launch the pocket card game and felt they couldnt do it without a full game announcement so they announced Z-A pretty early - if they had something sooner they would have announced it imo
 
Leo said:
BW are not happening this year, period.

Khu was full of shit, he probably had no info about PLZA so he placed his bets on Unova remakes because everyone was hyping themselves about them, but they were never happening. Took a shot, missed.

Also gonna take a wild guess here and say Pyoro has no sources on Pokémon at all, and in fact, no sources on anything that isn't getting announced imminently. We have no reason to believe otherwise.
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Pretty sure Pyoro only has info on games being listed at the eShop, that's why they would never leak something like Z-A.
 
aus89 said:
Imo its pretty clear they mainly wanted to reveal/launch the pocket card game and felt they couldnt do it without a full game announcement so they announced Z-A pretty early - if they had something sooner they would have announced it imo
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this. If they plan to release a Remake this year, why would they announce the Legends game planned to release next year instead of the remake releasing this year? Wouldn't it make sense to market the remake first if they plan to release it this Novemeber or December? They are not giving the remeake just two or three months of marketing and than go back to Legends.
 
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