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interview

The Outer Worlds

Sometime in 2020, Obsidian’s RPG The Outer Worlds will be on Switch. It wasn’t always something that was planned, nor did the team think it was necessarily possible.

Speaking with USgamer, co-game director Leonard Boyarsky said:

Wii was one of Nintendo’s better-performing systems having sold over 100 million units worldwide. However, that success wasn’t always guaranteed. Especially before release, questions were raised over Wii’s name and its heavy use of motion controls.

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie-Fils Aime looked back on Wii during his recent lecture at Cornell. The platform, he said, came about due to Nintendo feeling there was “a lack of innovation in games and consoles”. He also called the “interaction between players and the game” led by Wii and Wii Sports (which itself was a huge hit) “a gutsy call that paid off.”

Gods & Monsters was hit with a delay this week, which many saw coming due to a lack of news following the initial reveal at E3 2019 back in June. Instead of February, Ubisoft has pushed the game back into the next fiscal year starting April 2020.

After the delay was announced, the Gods & Monsters team shared a message for the fans. It reads in full:

Pokemon logo

Game Freak has been known to put out Pokemon games regularly. Since the company took a break in 2015, we saw Pokemon Sun/Moon, Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu / Eevee, and now Pokemon Sword/Shield in consecutive years. Although it may seem like Pokemon is a yearly series, Game Freak says it’s not intentional.

Pokemon producer Junichi Masuda explained to VG247, “each time we go into making a new game and start a new project we look at what exactly we want to create – and then from where we decide the most appropriate timing to release it depending on various factors.” What’s important to Game Freak is to have “as many people to come in contact and play Pokemon as possible.”

Pokemon Sword/Shield

Game Freak shared some news at E3 2019 earlier this year regarding Pokemon Sword/Shield that left many fans disappointed. Unlike past entries, not all Pokemon will be included this time around. We still don’t have a complete list as to which creatures are in and which aren’t, but the bottom line is that some Pokemon are being cut.

Speaking with VG247, producer Junichi Masuda again weighed in on the situation, stating that Game Freak always hopes to develop “the most interesting game possible and make a more enjoyable, richer experience for the fans.” And since the team is able to “give people a greater attachment to the Pokemon that are in the game,” the studio has no regrets about the decision made with the national Pokedex.

Masuda shared the following when asked if the fan response gave Game Freak any pause for thought, and if he believes this is the only way to go in the future:

Tall grass may not immediately come to mind as an important element of Pokemon, but it’s something that Game Freak concentrated on while developing Sword and Shield. Speaking with Famitsu, director Shigeru Ohmori said that it took the team “about a half-year of disagreements until it took its shape.”

Here’s the full exchange between Famitsu, Ohmori, and producer Junichi Masuda, courtesy of Siliconera:

Like previous entries in the series, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield won’t have voice acting. The characters have lines of text to read while the Pokemon themselves maintain their tradition sound effects.

In an interview with Metro, director Shigeru Ohmori was asked why voice acting wasn’t included this time around. He pointed to the amount of work that would be needed for recordings due to the amount of languages supported as well as maintaining the idea players have in mind for the different characters.

Pokemon logo

Speaking with IGN, Pokemon producer Junichi Masuda vaguely discussed how Game Freak approaches future Pokemon games. He explained that what is and isn’t kept “may depend somewhat on the timing of when that game will come out.” For instance, while Pokemon Sun/Moon did away with gyms since it was the second generation entry on 3DS, Pokemon Sword/Shield is the true debut on Switch, which is why gyms are back.

Masuda also confirmed that new-generation Pokemon titles “have about a three-year development cycle”. The developers need to think about what the future will be like in three years’ time, including what fans would be interested in when the games release.

Masuda’s full words:

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.

Nintendo ultimately decides how it wants to move forward with new hardware, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t interested in hearing from outside voices. In fact, Pokemon developer Game Freak is one such company that is able to provide a bit of feedback.

Pokemon Sword/Shield producer Junichi Masuda, in an interview with Polygon, said he told late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata that the Big N should make a “hardware platform that people can enjoy together.” Masuda noted the following when asked if Switch is pulling Game Freak onto consoles:


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