Nintendo has confirmed the release of Pokémon Legends Z-A, which is due 2025.
The announcement came yesterday as part of the annual Pokémon Day celebrations and despite The Pokémon Company confirming it had several “exciting” plans, it still took fans by surprise for a number of reasons.
Not only had Game Freak been hinting at a remake of Pokémon Black & White following the success of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in 2021 but Nintendo had never confirmed that Legends: Arceus was anything more than a standalone title.
However, Pokémon Legends Z-A is due for release some time in 2025 and will take players back to the Parisian-inspired central city of Pokémon X & Pokémon Y.
“A new adventure awaits within Lumiose City, where an urban redevelopment plan is under way to shape the city into a place that belongs to both people and Pokémon,” said the official description, with the trailer also hinting at the return of fan-favourite feature mega-evolutions, which haven’t been used since 2014’s Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
While Arceus took players back in time to a very early version of the Sinnoh region, known as Hisui, the futuristic look of Lumiose City has fans speculating that Z-A will see them time travelling into the near future.
The Pokémon set to feature in Z-A have yet to revealed, but the trailer leans heavily on generation six with Aegislash, Litleo, Pyroar, Klefki, Talonflame, Furfrou, Gogoat, Fletchling, Sylveon, Espurr, Flabébé and Hawlucha all showcased, alongside a lot of Pikachu action. Classic Pokémon like Dragonair, Gyrados and Pidgy also feature.
Pokémon Z was originally rumoured to be the sequel to 2013’s X&Y but never materialised.
In a three-star review, NME wrote: “Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the game that many have wanted Pokémon to be for the last 10 years. It also looks about that old and runs about that well too. It’s absolutely wonderful to finally have something genuinely new in this amazing series, but I’m also really hoping this is just the first step towards more experimentation with the formula, because now we’ve all been given a taste of what Pokémon could become.”
In other news, Hidetaka Miyazaki has said there is a “high possibility” he won’t be involved in future “Souls-ish” FromSoftware games.