What Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ Lack of Dual Releases Could Mean For the Franchise

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the only version of the game releasing later this month, which may imply some things about the franchise’s future.

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This seems to be a transitional time for the Pokemon series. After the release of Sword and Shield, fans weren’t satisfied that the games and their mechanics remained essentially unchanged from its early days even when making the jump to more powerful hardware. Pokemon Legends: Arceus seems to be addressing that with its open-world mechanics and a seemingly new take on the Pokemon formula.

One change that’s been made for the game outside of its mechanics has some potential major implications for the future of the franchise: there’s only one version of Pokemon Legends: Arceus. While this might seem like a small change to some, Pokemon has been doing dual releases since its inception, so it’s odd that Legends Arceus would be standing on its own as a mainline Pokemon game. If the changes made the mechanics are going to stick around for the foreseeable future of the franchise, then the singular release might as well. This could mean some big changes for the Pokemon Series down the road, both good and bad.

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Given the major changes to the series coming hand-in-hand with the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus it does make some sense that the game might change the traditional structure of the franchise. Typically, two Pokemon games release at the same time both essentially being the same game, but with slight differences to set them apart such as the selection of Pokemon available and certain other narrative elements. Then, a few years later, another version releases that bundles all the content together with additional story beats and Pokemon such as with Crystal, Yellow, Platinum, and Emerald. That formula hasn’t been used, however, since Pokemon Platinum. Instead, Game Freak has been releasing two updated games of both versions a few years later like with Ultra Sun and Moon and Black and White 2.

While the newer approach certainly has its merits, fans seem to truly revere the stand-alone followups to earlier Pokemon games. It’s possible that Game Freak took notice of this and decided to completely cut out the middle man and go for that sort of definitive, quality release in Pokemon Legends: Arceus without needing two games to precede it. Recent leaks seem to suggest that multiple legendary Pokemon traditionally associated with one version of the franchise will be included in the game together similar to the style of games like Pokemon Emerald or Platinum.

Based on the fact that Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a mainline Pokemon title being developed by Game Freak, it seems to suggest that this might be the way of the franchise moving forward: singular releases containing all of the new Pokemon. It’s still to be seen if that’s the case, but if it is, it might be a controversial move among the Pokemon community.

While other frequently released gaming franchises opt to release one title featuring all the new content, Pokemon has always split things between two games. That’s made the excitement of choosing a version to play something that fans look forward to with each subsequent release as they research which monsters will be included in which version. In addition to that, it helped establish the franchise as a social experience as fans looked for other players who bought the opposite version as them to trade over the version exclusive Pokemon in order to complete the Pokedex. If that were to disappear in favor of singular releases, fans might be disappointed, as the series would lose one element that sets it apart from other franchises.

There haven’t been many conversations surrounding this potential change in the lead up to Pokemon Legends: Arceus’ release, but if the next game in the series follows its lead, there could be controversy among the community once again.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is set to launch on Nintendo Switch on January 28.

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