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Wow, I didn’t see that coming at all. I thought we might see a new Legends game, but I was sure it would be Johto or Unova, not Kalos. What a surprise, especially when none of the leakers knew about this game, it came totally out of the blue.
I saw NoA’s tweet that this game will only be set in Lumiose City, which is disappointing, but could still be fun. It’s possible they can squeeze in enough environmental diversity to sustain an entire game with subbiomes in Lumiose City. Things like parks for Grass types, sewers for Poison types, Power Plants for Fire and Electric types, catacombs for Ghost types, etc. It would take some pretty clever design, but it’s doable.
I don’t think this game takes place in the past like Los Angeles. The architecture seems too modern. In fact, I think this could happen now or in the near future.
I’m firmly in the camp of people who think this is a Switch 2 title, or at least a cross-gen title. It looks like they might go for a much more detailed art style, and the 2025 release date matches up too well with rumors that the Switch 2 will be delayed internally to 2025. That would explain why there’s no 2024 game, if they were developing something. for Switch 2 which would be out of Game Freak’s reach and they WOULD HAVE to delay it until 2025.
I was actually thinking about this a bit more and I think the name could also be a hint that it’s cross-gen, ZA would be SUCH an appropriate name for a cross-gen title. Since Z is the end of the alphabet, A is the beginning of an alphabet, and is sometimes used for ranges/transitions, this game may have a strong theme of endings, beginnings, and transitions. We could see that to some extent, with the premise of this game being a redevelopment project for Lumiose City, this game could take place in the middle of that project as the city becomes something new. Wouldn’t that be appropriate for a cross-generational title? It would represent the last game on the Switch, the first game on the Switch 2, and the transition to the next generation of consoles. If they decided from the beginning that this game was going to be cross-gen, they couldn’t have chosen a better name.
Also, if it’s only in Lumiose City like the tweet says, that could indicate that this game is, in a way, a Switch 2 tech demo (if I’m right about this being cross-gen, they can’t get too crazy, but (they might be trying to experiment with new things they could be doing in Gen 10 on Switch 2). So I wouldn’t expect this to be a particularly big or long adventure. But hopefully, it will at least get us through Gen 10 , as it looks like it will be next after this game. And if a 2025 release means Gen 10 in 2026, ultimately that might be for the best, as Gen 10 would have a little more time. Everyone in the world and now almost fate as a whole feels like they’re begging Game Freak to wait until 2026 for Gen 10, hopefully taking advantage of the opportunity the universe presents to delay them and improve overall.
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