Wait, Are Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Set In Space?

Small details in the trailer suggest outer space is the setting for the latest Pokemon game, not just Spain

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Category : Pokemon

The first time I saw the trailer for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, I was excited. While it feels a bit too early for a new Pokemon game, right after Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl and Legends: Arceus, it’s also never too soon for a Pokemon game. Legends: Arceus has its flaws, but it was a much needed evolution in the Pokemon formula, and I expect it to feature highly in my game of the year list. I see the argument for keeping this positive momentum going with the launch of Gen 9 this year. Like I said, I was excited. The only problem is I watched it a second time and I felt nothing.

I don’t really do hype, so maybe we shouldn’t read too much into it. Especially off the back of Arceus, it’s not like I’m falling out of love with Pokemon, but the details seemed so sparse. The trailer gave us a brief overview of the region without revealing many details of the gameplay, so what more is there to see? Tsareena was confirmed, so that’s something, and I like all of the new starters (a rarity, especially on first viewing), but what more is there? The YouTube trailer description confirms it as an open world game, but how precisely does that work? Do Pokemon roam everywhere, as in Arceus? Or is it more like the Wild Area, where we can wander everywhere but Pokemon only roam in particular zones, with typical grass encounters in others? Is there a hub, like Arceus, which disrupts the open world feel, or will it go one better and let us go wherever we like with no interruptions? No idea, and no clues are there to be seen. I’m still anticipating a great game, but there’s not much reason to get excited about it right now.

Or at least, so I thought. While rewatching it, a trailer breakdown by popular Pokemon YouTuber Austin John Plays reignited my interest with the suggestion that it might be going into space. I’ve previously suggested Pokemon going to space is the natural extension for the series – Unite has played around with the cosmos cosmetically, several Legendaries and Mythicals have outer space origins, and New Pokemon Snap could yet explore the stars. A main series game isn’t what I expected to explore it, but Austin John Plays makes some great points.

There’s very little in the actual gameplay that suggests anything other than a grounded, regular Pokemon game where you win gym battles and become a champion. Instead, the secrets are in the logos. First, consider the font. Scarlet and Violet’s fonts don’t seem at all like a natural pair. Scarlet has a traditional look to it, with curled serifs and a texture that resembles glasswork. Violet, on the other hand, is clear cut, sleek, and modern, a dark purple spotted with white dots – almost like a night sky speckled with stars.

The logos also pop up on the screen in a cluster of rings and dots pictured below, and seem to resemble a solar system. They also appear with a flourish that seems somewhat cosmic. The signs seem to be there, and the disparity between the two logos clearly invites speculation, but now the question is how would that work? As ambitious as Legends: Arceus was, Pokemon is still not going Poke Balls to the wall, and just sending us off into space to spacewalk around seems unlikely. Instead, it will probably come down to the Legendaries.

Despite the success of Legends: Arceus in telling stories revolving around Palkia, Dialga, and Arceus itself, Pokemon has not had any great Legendaries for a while. Maybe not since Rayquaza. To bet on them getting it right this time around is a risk, but if Legends has convinced The Pokemon Company to be more ambitious in its storytelling, maybe we’ll finally see Legendaries that matter instead of overdesigned Digimon.

I’d love for Pokemon to explore the solar system, but more likely the stars will come to us through the game’s Legendaries. There’s the off chance we might get to gaze out into space, or that space will play a major role in the story, but mostly I just want to be able to go there. Maybe we’ll know more when the Legendaries are revealed on the box art. It might even be, with such disparate logos, that Scarlet is the more grounded game, and Violet takes to the stars. That would at least make having two versions worth it again.

Pokemon has been pushing itself recently, experimenting more with spin-offs, giving us the Wild Area, and completely reinventing itself through Legends: Arceus. Following that pattern, it makes sense for the new games to do something new too, rather than going back to the same old same old. We can only hope it might boldly go where no Pokemon game has gone before.

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