In this morning’s first Pokemon Presents 2024 presentation, The Pokemon Company laid out a handful of updates to their mobile game selection and announced a new Pokemon TCG game called Pokemon TCG Pocket, launching in 2024. They also revealed Pokemon Legends Z-A, a sequel to Pokemon Legends: Arceus that brings us back to the Kalos Region from Pokemon X & Y and launches sometime in 2025 for Nintendo Switch.
You can view the presentation in its entirety via the YouTube video below:
For those unfamiliar, the Pokemon Legends series is a branch of the main games that features over-the-shoulder third person gameplay and open-world exploration. The first game in the franchise, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, launched in 2022 and featured several new gameplay features such as the ability to be directly attacked by wild Pokemon and full-on boss battles against larger enemies in lieu of the traditional turn-based system.
While Pokemon Legends: Arceus was set in the Sinnoh region generations before the events of Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, it’s unclear exactly when Pokemon Legends Z-A will take place. Arceus featured a very Breath of the Wild-esque landscape with small, rudimentary settlements and rolling natural environments, whereas the trailer for Z-A seems to clearly represent a bustling society within the region’s central city of Kaliose. It’s possible that the gameplay style will be significantly different from its predecessor.
The Pokemon Company also revealed that Pokemon TCG Pocket, a new mobile game that mimics the collectible trading card game, would be arriving sometime in 2024. Players will be able to open two free card packs per day, an enticing offer for those who are big fans of collecting rare pocket monsters. Trading and card battles will also be available as features for avid trainers looking to catch ’em all.
During the presentation, The Pokemon Company also announced several updates to many of their mobile game offerings such as Pokemon Sleep, Pokemon Unite, and Pokemon Masters EX. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet are also getting some new Tera Raid Battle Events in the next few weeks for mighty variants of Gen 1’s starter evolutions. Finally, Pokemon Go will be launching a tie-in event for the Pokemon Horizons animated series on March 5 that will run through March 11.
Most notably, this presentation implies that there are no plans to release a major Pokemon title in 2024. Given the recent abundancy of rumors about an upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 launch, this decision makes sense. We hope that the extra time will allow Game Freak to properly polish and optimize their next title to match modern standards.
We’ll be sure to update our readers as we learn more about each of the titles announced during Pokemon Presents 2024. Be sure to stay tuned in to us here at MP1st.
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Kinda figured Pokemon Legends Z-A would be a Switch 2 launch title