Game Freak on how quickly a Pokemon could be created, why Farfetch’d is getting an evolution, version-specific gym leaders

Polygon is one of a few outlets to have published an interview today with Game Freak about Pokemon Sword/Shield. There were a few highlights, with director Shigeru Ohmori commenting on how quickly a Pokemon could be created, why Farfetch’d is getting an evolution, and version-specific gym leaders.

You can read up on the responses from Ohmori below. Polygon has the full interview here.

On the quickest amount of time an actual Pokemon could be created in…

Ohmori: It definitely takes a decent amount of time. I’d say the fastest for coming up with an idea and actually implementing it completely in the game would be at least three months per character. You know, having them all move in parallel. It’s not just creating that outward appearance of the Pokémon. You’ve got to make sure that then you build the model and make sure it’s within the limits for the polygons, rig it with all the bones and everything, texture it and make it look how we set it up, and then send it to the animators, have them create all the different animations, review those to make sure they still match the idea, and then eventually put it in the game and make sure that everything works in there. So it’s definitely a pretty involved process.

On why Farfetch’d is getting an evolution now…

Ohmori: So the Galar region, the inspiration for it is actually the UK. We spent a lot of time researching and kind of referring to different things in the UK and I spent time there. One of the things I remember noticing was that the leeks that they sell in the UK are much bigger and thicker than the ones I see in Japan. So seeing that, I got the idea that the Farfetch’d that lives in the Galar region would maybe evolve in a different way than you see elsewhere.

On the idea behind version-specific gym leaders…

Ohmori: This also comes back to the whole idea of Pokémon battles in the Galar region being this kind of sport. They’re played in gym stadiums. It’s kind of a background setting. It’s not actually in the game but we had the idea that there would be 18 gyms in the region, total. And only eight of those in either game are in the kind of major league that you actually challenge as part of your gym challenge. So we had this kind of idea that, oh, maybe some of the different types would actually be in these two different games.