Pokémon Legends: Arceus Coming to Switch In January

Nintendo today announced that Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the next original game in the Pokémon series, is launching on January 28 next year for the Nintendo Switch. This game, which claims to take the series in a new direction by “fusing action & RPG elements,” will take the Pokémon formula into the wide-open spaces.

Arceus is one of the largest Pokémon games to date, being an open-world RPG set in the Sinnoh region. It apparently takes place sometime in Sinnoh’s ancient history, being set before the time of Pokémon trainers — though you’ll note from the trailers that we’ll still have all the other staples of the series, like Poké Balls and Pokémon battles. You’ll be able to catch wild Pokémon aplenty by observing their behavior and carefully sneaking up on them with proper steampunk Poké Balls — no, really, it even says “steam puffed from their tops when Pokémon were caught.”

The press release for the game describes the story thus: “As the game’s protagonist, the player will set out to create and complete the region’s first Pokédex by catching, surveying, and researching the wild Pokémon that live there.​” According to the game’s site, you can also catch wild Pokémon via battle: “Just throw the Poké Ball holding your ally Pokémon near a wild Pokémon, and you’ll seamlessly enter battle and command your Pokémon by choosing from moves it knows.”

The game was originally announced in February, and the most detail we got at the time was that it would be out sometime in early 2022. We now know the exact date is January 28. Nintendo refers to the game as a “pre-make,” presumably because it’s a prequel to the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes, which are also set in the Sinnoh region. Arceus only knows why they went with that instead of just calling it a prequel, but who am I to judge?

Source: Pokémon Press