Pokémon Sword and Shield for Nintendo Switch: 10 things we want

Pokémon actually in the world

Up until the very recent Let’s Go games for the Nintendo Switch, the Pokémon series has been really bad at making you feel like you live in a world where Pokémon are part of everyday life and are just everywhere. You might see a couple out and about, encounter them randomly for battles, but it didn’t feel like a place where Pokémon were as common as everyday animals, and just everywhere you looked like it seemed they should be. To some extent, this was certainly limitations of the hardware, but still always felt barren compared to what it could be.

Sword and Shield for the Nintendo Switch need to take full advantage of the capabilities of the platform and make the Pokémon are a part of everyday life. If the games are returning to random battles, that’s a step backward in my opinion but also not the biggest deal.

What we do need to see is Pokémon in towns and houses, interacting with their trainers or just running around in general. The world should be lousy with Pokémon. It’s an everyday facet of life with this universe, the people in it shouldn’t be amazed by it, but we should be able to see and be amazed by it. It would help the game feel like the world of the series is fully realized.

That is our list of 10 things we’d like to see in the first new game in the long-running series for the Nintendo Switch. No matter what, hopefully, they do not play too conservatively with this entry and use the capabilities of the Switch and the fact that it’s a brand new entry to take some risks and try some new things as well as incorporate ideas from past entries that world well.

Sword and Shield are both due for the Nintendo Switch later this year. Got any thoughts on what you’d like to see in the latest entry? Let us know in the comments.