The Pokemon Company on why Pokemon Sword/Shield had DLC in favor of a third game

It wasn’t until Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield that the series received major DLC. Whereas past entries often saw a third game/version later on, the two Switch titles were instead given expansions in the form of The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra.

Game Informer recently asked The Pokemon Company about this new approach. Regarding DLC and whether they take the approach of traditional follow-up third games, they said:

“There was an element of apprehension in moving to a downloadable model, but we were confident that players would enjoy exploring the new environments, uncovering new storylines, and meeting new human characters and Pokémon in both The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. With past titles, players generally had to collect and raise their Pokémon completely from scratch, so with a DLC we thought players would enjoy being able to use their favorite Pokémon right out of the gate.”

The Pokemon Company also weighed in on Dynamax Adventures, which were a means to change up how Legendary Pokemon are captured. The full statement is as follows:

“The idea for Dynamax Adventures started with the team wanting to introduce new elements to Max Raid Battles. We think Dynamax Adventures was the perfect way to achieve this. We wanted to change the way in which Legendary Pokémon are captured in our games. Some of the Legendary Pokémon that appear in Dynamax Adventures differ between Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. Only by joining up with players using a different version will you have a chance to catch them as well.”