It seems that big changes may be in store for the Pokémon formula. In a recent talk between Pokémon battle director Shigeki Morimoto and Pokémon Champions game director Kazumasa Iwao, the former said a key reason Game Freak released Champions was to preserve a place for the series’ traditional turn-based battles, implying even the mainline games may eventually ditch this approach.
In a translated statement posted by Centro Leaks on X, Iwao said, “One big reason [for Champions]: the battle rules we’ve used through the Pokémon series for so long may gradually start changing as the series moves forward. And there are people who’ve been playing since Red and Green, Gold and Silver — decades. So just saying ‘battles have changed now play the new one’ didn’t feel right.”
Over the last few years, Game Freak has gone with a different approach in the spin-off Legends games (Arceus and Z-A), altering combat so players control their ‘mons in real-time, selecting attacks which then go on cooldown. While the Legends games are a significant departure, the mainline Pokémon titles have still been using the series’ turn-based approach, the most recent being 2022’s Scarlet and Violet.
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