Detective Pikachu devs explains how the franchise came to be, possibility of revisiting the IP

In a recent Famitsu interview, key developers behind Detective Pikachu spoke about the franchise’s origins.

Executive producer Tsunekazu Ishihara, along with original producer and writer of the sequel Hiroyuki Jinnai, chatted with the magazine. Jinnai mentioned how company wanted to pursue an adventure game as that’s something that hadn’t really been done previously with the Pokemon spin-offs.

Here’s our translation:

I’d like to talk about the main topic, Detective Pikachu Returns. First off, please tell us about how the Detective Pikachu series came to be.

Jinnai: To start with some context, Creatures is mostly responsible for spin-offs of Pokemon – from the Pokemon Tales series to the Pokemon Ranger series or the PokePark series, and also the Detective Pikachu series. I believe the primary content of the Pokemon franchise is formed by the three pillars of the games, trading card game, and the TV anime. Pokemon GO has also become prominent. Compared to the primary content, the titles we handle are ultimately secondary and are a step away from the spotlight, but we still hope that they produce a positive effect on the primary content while creating them.

With that in mind, what was the reason the Detective Pikachu project was planned?

Jinnai: After development finished on PokePark, when we thought about what kind of game to make next, we set our sights on creating an adventure game, which had not been done for Pokemon spin-off titles yet. However, just trying to create a normal one didn’t seem very interesting. While considering various ideas, we thought of adding some spice to it with the element of a “talking middle-aged man Pikachu”, and that led to the creation of Detective Pikachu.

Something else that was touched on in the interview is the possibility of revisiting Detective Pikachu again in the future. While it sounds like nothing concrete is planned, The Pokemon Company could do something again with the IP depending on fan interest.

Jinnai: The story of Tim, Pikachu and Harry will come to a close. However, since everyone in the staff loves this talking middle-aged Pikachu, there could be other developments following different threads…?

Ishihara: We can’t promise anything at this point in time, but if Detective Pikachu Returns is received well and there’s a huge demand from the people, there could be room for more spin-offs as such.

Detective Pikachu Returns is currently available on Switch.

Translation provided by SatsumaFS, Philip Proctor, and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo Everything.