Two of the minds behind Pokemon Sword and Shield, Shigeru Ohmori and Junichi Masuda, recently sat down with Pokemon.com and answered a few questions. One theme that was clear throughout the interview was the fact that they are, and will continue, to take fan feedback into consideration for future features in the Pokemon franchise. In fact, they cited two examples where feedback from Pokemon Let’s Go! impacted Sword and Shield and how the reception to one new feature in Pokemon’s newest iteration could possibly shape the future of the franchise.
When asked about what they carried over from Pokemon Let’s Go!, Masuda and Ohmori admitted that at first, they didn’t intend Pokemon to roam the field in Sword and Shield. However, given how popular the feature was in Pokemon Let’s Go!, they decided to implement it, listening to fan reception. Note, they only had roughly a year or so to do this (I believe), which takes dedication, and by no means was easy work.
“One thing we didn’t originally intend to implement in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield was having Pokémon roaming around in the field. After Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! were released and we saw how popular the feature was, we worked hard to bring it over to Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield for a lot of the Pokémon and adjusted the balance of the games to make it work.“
One new feature to Pokemon Sword and Shield is a free-roaming camera. It is posited by the interview that it works very well in the game, and asks if the developers would ever want to make a “fully open-world Pokemon game.” Ohmori had a very consumer-friendly answer and simply stated that they’ll think about what to do in the future based on fan reactions.
“We always want to come up with new surprises for our players with each new Pokémon game. This is our first time introducing free camera movement in the series, so we’re excited to see how our players will respond to it once they get their hands on the games. We’ll think about what we want to do in the future based on those reactions.“
This is ironic, considering they are not listening to fans about implementing missing Pokemon at a later date, but, there’s no doubt that the Game Freak team is listening to all praise and criticism that is bound to come their way.
Pokemon Sword and Shield releases this Friday, November 15, and we cannot wait!