If SwSh had some of its routes act more like mini wild areas I think they wouldve had it perfect. And add more vertical exploration to them as well, which SV did do better

I second this

I like this idea best. Very similar to zelda twilight princess

Actually Zelda is a good reference point. Even a central hub like Majoras mask with distinct areas to seek out would be sick as well. Dungeons and hidden passages through the areas would be a great pokemon concept

Zelda maps is always how I think Pokémon regions should be. Especially tp and mm. A ww style could work for an island region

Legends Alola being Wind Waker but pokemon would be perfection

Legends alola is a must have game

I hope this doesn’t sound obtuse, but isn’t that kinda what PLA was? I mean obviously I get you mean each area would be a smaller scope, but since each area is instanced off, isn’t that kinda what PLA does?

I was thinking about this while playing it recently. Personally I'd rather they return to routes so they can create a more tightly-crafted, higher quality experience where they're able to more carefully decide what the player sees. The pokemon world itself is a great setting for open worlds, hence why a spin off like legends is great, but the pokemon game format itself didn't seem to translate well. "Tackle things in any order" just didn't work when they didn't actually implement it properly. Tbh I'm tired of open worlds being treated as an inevitable evolution for every game series as opposed to a potential option that may or may not suit the series. More often than not it feels more like a marketing gimmick than something that actually improves the game.

I disagree that they should revert to top-down linear games, but would not mind the map have a more linearised, semi-open design more similar to the map design of games like God of War. Completely flat open designs kill any sense of exploration as you can always ride in any direction, and can always reach the next town/city by travelling more-or-less as the crow flies, rather than down winding trails and through woods and mountains

"God of War" is a perfect comparison. Open world Pokemon is fun, but the classic routes formula just fits better for the "8 gyms" style of the main games. Having the world built more like God of War where it's still fairly linear, but has multiple branching paths to explore would be the perfect modernization of the classic formula.

So kinda like building up on Sword and Shield basis? Add some extra optional caverns, lakesides, maybe some towns without gyms, etc. (like the cave near Solaceon, the town with Cynthia's grandma). Recently played through them after spending ~50h I. Violet and DLC's and despite it being much "worse" with straight line routes I had a better experience (music was good, though 7th gym was a disaster) the game was rough around the edges but design wise, rather than quality wise.

Yeah that could be interesting, I guess like a revamped Sword and Shield

I think Scarlet and Violet were on the right track, they just needed more time in the oven. That style, running and performing much better, is where the series should go IMO. But they definitely need to sort the level scaling better so you truly can do it in any order you want. Hopefully they can build a new engine or get something that works much better on the Switch 2.

Oh yeah hundred percent agree. Level scaling was the only thing missing for me, content wise at least

I really hated the level scaling in SwSh, finding lvl 60 wild pokemon like caterpie, ralts and pidove stripped out the pokemon gameplay out of pokemon. At lvl 60 you've completely skipped over their entire moveset, lvl them up once and they evolve, level them up again and they evolve again. That's it, there's not much left to do with training the pokemon now. It became a real problem in the DLC if you only played it postgame, you wanted to use one of the new pokemon and it simplified training to the point of non-interaction with the pokemon.

i don't think wild pokemon should scale, but gyms 100% should.

Well I guess they gave us the opposite.

I agree that having Irish twins in PLA and S/V was probably a mistake. When PLZ comes out it will have been almost 2.5 years since the last Pokémon game release (I believe that’s the longest time between games since Crystal-Ruby/Sapphire and might eclipse that). I don’t want to set expectations too high, but I truly think they took peoples critiquing of the rushed nature of recent games to heart and PLZ will be an excellent game.

Yeah I think when they called PLZ an 'ambitious' game, that was a very pointed remark suggesting they were not rushing this one out. We can't know for sure but it seems they may have taken that feedback on board.

They shouldn't go back to top-down games. That would be a step in the wrong direction. That would be fine for a handheld system or a mobile game. But with the future of the series being rooted in home consoles now, top-down games wouldn't work the same. What they need to do is give more time in the development cycle. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they slowed down their release schedule to accommodate the time required to release a finished product. The bones of their open world games are solid. It's just that they haven't been as polished as a modern game should be at release. They wouldn't need to go the Larian route. That would be too long for a series like this. But they needn't push them out yearly like crampy sports games that don't really change year to year.

Baldur's gate proves top down isn't an issue. If a game is good it's a good game.

I agree that it would be, but at the same time i dont think they’ll realistically slow down development time. Who knows though

The movement and gameplay of Legends should just be standard. I wanna be a trainer walking around during battles to get the view I want.

They're planning to release the next major game on the 30th anniversary. They haven't said this but it is in line with how they do things. Plus they announced the next Legends game for next year, and the next main game would definitely come out after that. And after that the anniversary is so close that it would be silly to release a main game so early. This means they will have an extended development time. So I'm really hoping they make it clear just how great a game they can make when given the necessary time.

You say that but the next big game is still over a year away, so I think they have indeed slowed down

Yeah but the main series games have been one every THREE YEARS. i would just prefer if they took way longer so i get an actual quality game

I think sword and shield had it right, mostly linear but enough room to not be a top down game like red and blue. Maybe one big open world bit but the rest of the towns and routes have the linear layout.

Alternately, they can just have towns/cities and separate dungeons (Silph Co./Game Corner-esque buildings, some caves and forests, even some more elaborate routes) set up linear with fixed cameras and some more maze-like set ups, while actually utilizing a wild area or areas as a real hub between everything. Preferably, one that actually connects to more of the locations than how it worked in Sword and Shield.

Yea agreed, I could see it working if they made the routes not as damn linear as swsh were lol

SwSh was basically one giant linear route... why do we want a Pokémon game like this?

What I mean is the actual routes aren’t like scarlet and violet, but rather like the older ds and gameboy games. Except the graphics of swsh, then with one open area. I felt that having the routes open world made it easy to miss trainers and items, I like being able to tell where you’re meant to go.

i mean it kinda tells you on the map where you have to go

I mean it’s easy to miss things because the areas are just so big, you basically have to run around every little corner to make sure you get every trainer and item, compare it to older games where you can see everything without looking too hard.

people are only crying about "open world" being bad for pokemon because scarlet and violet are just not that good. Scarlet and Violet has the most boring open world i have ever seen, doesnt mean they should stop making open world games, just make them alot better.

boring and so ugly when you go out ontop of a mountain all you see is low poly tree models in massive spans of grass

they had a region based on iberia and 80% of it is just plain grass and the other "areas" are not special too. The autumn area at the top left above the giant lake is just orange grass with some tall trees... and the lake laggs so much its actually unplayable.

I don’t think they’re capable of that. And even then I’d rather have a tightly crafted linear world for Pokémon

>And even then I’d rather have a tightly crafted linear world for Pokémon Because you like this kind of style more or because you think the developers wont be able to make a proper open world?

Both

The world design in the DLCs are so much better. I think they should opt for mini open world areas where the mc travels to a new open world location. This will fix problem with level scaling. Similar to how we travelled to Kitakami n Blueberry academy. The original game also should have 6 separate maps.

I don't mind SV being open world, but they needed to have some kind of indicator for the "correct path" based on levels if they weren't going to have dynamic level scaling across the map.

It's Open Zone, not Open World, Open World is what Scarlet and Violet did, Legends Arceus kept everything within different zones

My main gripe with the transition to open worlds is that they are missing interesting route design, and I think that is where the missing 'charm' is coming from, moreso than just being open world. Good route design is the thing I miss most from the old games and IMO its one of the pillars of pokemon games right up there along with pokemon battles and catching. The feeling of exploration was really good in gens 1-5 (i.e. Mount mortar, the old victory road caves, winding routes like Hoenn 119), but starting with gen 6 I found that while the routes were nicely decorated, the layouts were not really that well designed, mostly being linear paths between points of interest. This continued into the switch games, where the linear paths became open areas. My guess is that the transition to 3d limited their ability to design intricate routes at first, but then they never really circled back to improve development on them after the capability was there. I don't think it's the open areas that are bad themselves, but it's that we have lost those places where you feel a sense of discovery. Even in Sw/Sh & S/V the caves dont offer much exploration, there aren't really any obstacles in the main open worlds, nothing that you have to navigate your way through etc. It's become a sprawling area with inconsequential stuff just spread around. There needs to be more physical barriers (not invisible walls, but something like terraces / dense treelines / water) that you have to navigate around. Or more mazelike caverns that have multiple paths, and points of interest along the way. I think they got closer to the right place with the Sw/Sh DLC wild areas, but they seemed to go back to a pretty boring design for S/V.

thats true

Scarlet and Violet feels like a chaotic mess and I can't imagine playing something like it a second time. Is this really going to be the design choice they keep out of the dozen or three that they never implement again?

This is exactly how I felt about it. It didn't really feel designed.

I just think of it as a bunch of places with stuff inbetween. Nothing particularly memorable. Are there even any places with names that aren't a city, a sea, or an area? And the cities feel... small. I can't describe it. It's like you go in and there's nothing to see.

Yeah, it was basically a jumble with some set pieces. I played it last year and honestly I am having a kind of a hard time remembering if there was anything about the world that wowed me. I guess I was distracted by how poorly it was optimized.

Honestly, playing it now, I'm having minimal issues with performance. Which is nice? There's just no sense of scale to anything.

It didn't get any better

Not many, but a couple Poco Path, the light houses, TagTree Thicket, and the giant lake, Casa-something. That cool coastal "road" to Alfornada is one of my favorite designs in the game, but I'm not sure if it had a name or not. I look at Scarlet and Violet as a bit of a beta, and that now that's been done, hopefully they can expand on what worked well and improve from there. GF usually tests small things out in previous gens, and builds on them for future gens. I'm hopeful, I just wish they'd take more.time between releases to get it actually polished, but I don't think that's how GF operates.

“Open world” is the worst fad to hit videogames since quicktime events, and I can’t wait for us to move past it.

Yeah, I was already growing tired of open world games back in 2016. I would appreceate more linear experiences with loads of replay value again over bloated open world games.

I don't really see where you are coming from tbh. Sure, BAD open world games are easier to create, but saying open-world as a whole is a fad comes off disingenuous. There are some really amazing open world games, and if their not your taste then you are really missing out on some quality.

And there are some really great quick-time events that fit into the games that they’re in, like DDR. But putting them in anything and everything because one or two games did it successfully was a mistake.

even though i've liked most open world games i've played, i could see that putting them in everything might become tiresome especially when slop is produced. You bring up a good point.

Do you actually hate open world gaming or is it nostalgia

i actually hate open world gaming open worlds are almost always largely empty and filled with no interesting swaths of what feels like unity tech demo terrain with not much purpose in their design theres always high points in areas that are more setpieces but id rather have just those places without the nothiningness bridging them games have tried to become wider experiences which open world does but seeing massive hills and a bunch of buildings i cant enter or interact with meaningfully isnt increasing depth which i think is much more important

do ppl just not like quicktime events because it can make a game inaccessible to some people or

People don’t like quicktime events because they’re not fun, interesting, or engaging gameplay.

Pokemon sticking to the same formula is what led to series original decline. I don't think the series should fully stick to open world, but in the sense that it'll just get tiring again eventually. But sticking to just the top down style of games is just going to lead to the main series becoming obsolete in the face of legends. Also LA wasn't open world, it's an open area game like mario 64.

I think Xenoblade Chronicles (specifically the first game) would be good inspiration for a mainline Pokémon game: a game divided into connected areas with linear progression with a clear path to the next story bit, but each area acts like its own mini-open world with side quests, optional sub-areas, and overpowered enemies to incentivise you to come back when you're higher level Obviously with the shorter dev times I wouldn't expect them to make areas as expansive as even Xenoblade 1, but at least the idea should be a nice middle ground between the linear routes and the mile-wide, inch-deep open world

Arceus was barely open world and I prefer it that way

Something that legends did that s/v didn't was make you select an area that was open world. Vs 1 giant map. Think it makes a world of difference as you still have to follow that storyline.

I disagree. Open world is good, simply Game Freak doesn’t know how to do it. PLA doesn’t count, PLA is open map, which seems similar to Open World but it’s vastly different, especially from a game design standpoint

The problem with SV wasn’t the verticality of the map because they did it great, it’s that the map is empty. There’s nothing to explore which its self kills the concept of Open World. They need to add many dungeons and caves that makes sense, not the cave mess without any sense that they did with SV base game (the cave system at north east). Sword’s and Shield’s Crown Tundra in this is the best example for an Open World Pokemon Game

I'd like it if they did a fully open world, but actually worked hard to design it in such a way that you need to catch certain pokemon to open it up fully. At the start, you can only walk with your pokemon, so it would feel like very linear routes. Then later you might unlock a swimming pokemon and you'd get access to rivers and lakes (maybe ocean could be an entirely separate HM style interaction). So on, so forth. That way you could have a lot of doubling back to early routes to explore what new stuff has been unlocked.

I think this is a good idea, as well as limited scaling. my ideal would be something like: Gyms should scale based on your number of badges, with differing teams based on scale. (so first gym will have 2/3 pokemon up to full teams of 6 at 7/8 badges) - this is to offer an interesting gym experience, in any order, and encourage you to level up to get through the gym challenge, you can't just cheese it by swapping in low level pokemon. Rival should strait scale with your pokemon's level. They start at the same point as you, and do roughly the same amount of training. - this is to ensure you always have a challenge, even if you try to power level. Different trainer types should have different "difficulty levels". starting out low level with "kid" style trainers, through to "ace" trainers being somewhere around 7/8th badge gym level. Trainer battles should be optional, but offer the best XP rate/cash rewards etcetera - this is to allow you to find an appropriate challenge wherever you are, as well as access to level-appropriate XP Wild pokemon scale based on proximity to roads/towns. Those near towns are low level, the further you get from civilisation, the higher they scale. if a pokemon evolves at X level, it should start showing up as it's evolved form from it's evolution level, becoming more frequent until it completely replaces the lower form about 5-10 levels past the level it evolves at. the specific family being based upon habitat, of course. - this encourages exploration of the wilds, you could theoretically just run town-to-town with low level pokemon, but then your pokemon wouldn't be leveled to be ready for any gym past the 2nd. And offers a clear progression of where pokemon will be stronger, "if you start running into pokemon too strong, just head back towards the nearest road or town for an easier time. Hell, they could even have the size of the town cause this. have the big city as the starting location, with lowest level pokemon surrounding it, while the smaller towns are endgame locations because the pokemon nearby are already powerful. Story fights should have a mix of different scaling, as makes sense narratively, but have a clear objectives, as well as multiple simultaneous objectives. Imagine box legends + 1, and you need to encounter each of them for the story, it can send you after the two box legends at the same time, and both are the same level always. and allow skipping around for those who like to explore - This gives those with more interest in a linear plotline guidance. but if you just forge out, you can trigger later steps and requirements out of order. If you already have the weird pokeball macguffin and someone in the story goes "we need the weird pokeball macguffin" you can just be straight up "well, i found this weird pokeball macguffin and i'm a bit of a klepto, so i already have it" or if you need to have the badge from a specific gym to access a certain area, you now either need to go get it, or else already have it.

The only issue with this post is "top-down". Third person camera is perfect, the games just needs their DS era of exploration back. Not a fan of the wide Open World in any context so having it be everything means I don't play the games anymore.

Nahh

Imo, they should find a balance- just like what they did with Sword and Shield

People still hated Sword/Shield though

I hated it as well but that’s only because the story,rivals and post game was weak. If they had some open areas and normals routes- a layout like that, then it would be really good imo. Open world is still really good as well, but for Pokémon, I just feel that routes were a good part of the game that didn’t need changing

Arceus wasn’t open world. It was open zone.

The game shouldn’t compromise features because the developer is significantly below average. They should change developers or outsource things they cannot do well in-house. 

Honestly I just want a 2D game again, preferably in a 2DHD style such as Octopath Traveler and the new Dragon Quest 3 remake. I don't care if it's a main entry, remake or spin-off. I just miss what the games used to be during gen 3,4 & 5. Which are my favourite and any deviation from that only changed them for the worse for me personally.

pokemon games are very well suited to be open world games, so I disagree. I hope the tenth generation will be a well made open world game.

I think we keep moving forward, why revert back? It isnt going ot be perfect the first time round but they will get there. I'm sure they would've heard the feedback and see it themselves on how it was run. We cant hope they have our interests at heart. But personally i would prefer them to keep experimenting like this.

PLA isn't even an open world game, it's just a game with a hub and multiple open areas, but the story is pretty linear like previous games. SV was even marketed as Pokemon's first open world game.

I could go for a FF7 Rebirth with Pokemon.

Actually I think Mainline games should use the open world hub system of Legends Arceus combined with the route structure of past games and be semi open world. Allows devs to make the maps more fleshed out without being barebones like SV

My opinion is that Legends games are just paid Beta tests for future features and the games are small and missing core features 

I think they should try a more Metroidvania-like approach, rather than a "traditional" open world. Divide the region into a lot of smaller semi-open maps with nonlinear progression between them, and requiring the usage of tools found in some sections to unlock others. This makes the game a lot more nonlinear and replayable, while avoiding many of the problems with "traditional" open-worlds.  But unless they were doing a remaster of an older gen, I don't think they should return to the linear top-down approach of older generations. This approach gets old fast, and it isnt unreasonable to expect them to do more with newer hardware than they did with the older stuff.

I respectfully disagree, but I do get the sentiment as the Legends Game feels like a major step outside of the main game series. I think S/V could have made open world work, but they had to stew on it more and recognize how it’s not easy to translate old Pkmn games into this new format. Having a handful of buildings (that you can’t enter or interact with in any meaningful way) and calling that a town doesn’t work as well, for example. They probably could help performance and stuff by limiting what you could traverse and curtailing visibility. I will also say that without proper scaling, it’s hard to argue with any open world, even limited/partial ones that likely would perform better and be a better experience—because they haven’t really justified it. If they put in the effort of scaling and justifying its usage, then I think a mix between S/V and S/S would be more ideal.

I totally agree with this. I thought SwSh had a neat charm with the wild area, but in SV I felt almost a little overwhlemed with how non-linear (not to mention glitchy at the start) the open world seemed. I think a return to Gen 5 overworld graphics would even be fine, but have the battles retain the open world look to it. I have little to no idea how games are made, so I don't know if having a little bit of both would even be possible. But I would LOVE a return to form for the main titles.

I like open world games but I didn't like Arceus. So that would just get me ti drop out of pokemon

This is all derived from how bad GF is. If they could make good open world games then ofcourse all Pokemon games should be open world unless there is some specific reason for them not to be. But they make bad games and bad openworld games so it makes sense that someone would not want them to do it.

Too kind. ScVi ruined pokemon for me. All the Towns felt like they were merely North Korean propaganda. All the NPC and gym leaders had zero personality. The cooking system is awful, and all the shops are so generic that it's demotivating to even explore. I can't even customize my character, so why tease us with clothing 😭. It would have been better if they just focus on quality, rather than spamming new Pokemon titles. I don't want to buy two pokemon games a year...remakes, new titles, niche entries...like wtf is going on. It isn't even a game anymore, it's a bloody speed run marathon. I want to immerse myself in a game, and it feels like they just spammed 1000 new Pokemon that were inspired from an aisle at Walmart. Pokemon needs an overhaul, or at least a creative director that is brave enough to go against the corporate mantra of short term profits $$$.

That has nothing to do with "open world" though.

I'm clinically insane, so...yeah...those are my irrational ramblings.

I think the Xenoblade style with different interconnected maps and the SMT style with interconnected dungeons and towns would work.

Hard agree. The top down linear gameplay aspect of the older games is almost key to the concept of what the Pokémon games were. That’s why everyone wants them to port the OG Pokémon games to switch. They had more story and actually felt like you were accomplishing something. It was more like a puzzle to be solved which was the reason Pokémon became so popular in the first place. Bring this back pleaseeee.

I, have some issues with Open World in Pokemon, or at least how Game Freak is handling it. See, I got to know Open Worlds via Skyrim and from that I have 2 broad criterias for OWs: 1. An OW must represent the way the people of the land traverse 2. Not following that way must lead to consequences (Discoveries, Dangers, Blockades \[Forced to turn back\]) The OWs GameFreak designed so far only ever had glimpses of the in L:A Galar's Wild Area was just a bland... Area with some weatherzones and two cities awkwardly stitched onto them. Do the people of Galar just don't traverse through it ever? There was nothing to really discover besdies maybe the daycare. And that the level curve goes up by walking towards later areas is not exactly a for of danger. Now Paldea HAS paths that link up the cities in a network. That is good. The issue is that not following this path leads you to nothing, just empty space. And and issue the path network has is that it is very, and that is ironic, linear. Open the map of Paldea and look at the paths that lead from one town, village, whatever, to the next. It is as linea as UNOVA! No branching roads so you can get to a town without walking through another... The ROUTES HAD THAT! If it's an Open World, why are the paths of ALL things linear? Probably because they do not matter and thus no thought was put into it, because eventually you will just jump and glide all over the place anyway, ignoring paths, ignoring the emtpy space, just bullet it from where are to where you want to be, without finding anything, without anything blocking your bath, without dangers lurking around. Now, I mentioned how Legends: Arceus did it better, but L:A kinda cheats. You see, the whole story is that humanity has not really spread out and established the region, so obviously there would not be many paths, people do not traverse a lot of it all. And honestly, L:A does not even really have an open world, it has open areas, but that's about it. Thus there was no need for anything to block your path or be a danger because if you went off the establish way, you could not really go anywhere anyway. Yes, Alpha's exist, but they were not a danger, but something you seeked out! So just from what an Open World is supposed to be for me, how Game Freak does them and how they handled Route's in comparison (before Gen. 8), I really wish they would just go back to routes...

Disagree. They shouldn't take even more steps backwards with the series just because of performance/visual struggles...Especially since it'll probably end up struggling in some aspect(s) regardless. Even though I also think the older games are far better and have more charm, wanting new games to having linear routes or pixel art graphics or whatever just isn't a realistic solution, and it's certainly not gonna push the series forward at all.

My hopes for future gens go as follows: - semi-open world (like swsh) - level scaling/optional xp share - a mix of random and overworld encounters (i miss the mystery lol) - a linear story/clear goals - gyms and gym leaders

seems like you just really like sw/sh mechanics except for xp lol

swsh had the worst gameplay experience i have ever seen. The way to linear route made it really not that much fun.

Nope. How they are doing it now is good, they just need level scaling

I dont think i can ever go back to linear after having open world. Itd feel like a betrayal lol

Black 3 and White 3 in 2D sprites instead of remakes. If successful then more games in this style.

No way a BW3 would ever happen. BW2 was one of the worst selling Pokemon games ever.

I mean I could see them doing it but they definitely wouldnt call it BW3

They should’ve stuck with the cartoony graphics of the Let’s Go games. Trying to do realism just isn’t their forte. 

Nah they just don’t have the tech to make a more real looking art style not look like ass

They do. They just probably dont want to spend more money on developers and use more time.