Pokémon Legends Arceus was a highlight of the Pokémon Presents livestream – here’s everything we know and what we’d like to see.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the highly-anticipated open-world Pokémon RPG, revealed during February 2021’s Pokémon Presents livestream, which celebrated 25 years of the Pokémon franchise. Announced alongside Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl (remakes of the revered Nintendo DS titles), it looks like Pokémon Legends: Arceus is going to be the game that breaks new ground for the series, with a historical setting and an explorable open world. Confirmed for Nintendo Switch, Pokémon Legends: Arceus will act as a prequel to the main series, taking players to a much older version of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’s Sinnoh region, where Pokémon roamed freely, and they’ll be charged with completing one of the region’s first Pokédexes. Pokémon Legends: Arceus is scheduled to launch worldwide in early 2022 but in the meantime, we’ve gathered together everything we know about the game right here for your perusal. [Update: With Nintendo confirmed to be attending E3 2021, we’re hoping we might see more about Pokémon Legends: Arceus this summer. Read on to find out more.] Pokémon Legends Arceus was arguably the biggest news from the Pokémon Presents showcase, where it debuted alongside a trailer showing off some early in-engine gameplay. So far, all we know is that Pokémon Legends Arceus is being developed by Game Freak and will release in early 2022 for the Nintendo Switch. This puts it a few months beyond the release of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, both due to launch simultaneously in late 2021. How early is “early 2022”, though? Looking at Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl might give us some clues. Since Pokémon X and Y in 2013, mainline Pokémon entries tend to release around October or November. Based on that, we expect the remakes to launch somewhere in that end-of-year timeframe. As such, we don’t think Pokémon Legends Arceus will release too soon into 2022. Six months after the release of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl might be a safe bet, so potentially look to Q2 2022 for a possible release window for Pokémon Legends Arceus. Pokémon Legends Arceus returns players to the Sinnoh region, albeit in a time long before the events of any mainline Pokémon game. The game evokes a historical Japanese setting, evident in its artwork, landscapes and character designs. Pokémon Legends Arceus looks quite unlike any other effort we’ve seen so far in the series, and looks to expand on open world elements found in Pokémon Sword and Shield. Those games featured a pretty scaled back open world element, the Wild Area, which felt a little tacked on, like a separate entity to the rest of the game world.
