Pokemon Sword and Shield might have faced a little controversy when they first came out, but by now, the games are a success. They’ve sold many millions of copies — in fact, they’re in the top five best selling Switch games to date. What’s more, the games seem like they have a significant lifespan still ahead of them. One of the two Pokemon Sword and Shield DLCs has already released, and many fans are full of hope for the next one. Nintendo’s new ventures into DLC are a significant change in strategy for the company; still, it doesn’t seem to disrupt the fan formula. If it makes more DLCs for these games, it’d be set up for success.
In fact, there’s rumors going around that that’s the plan. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine, considering Nintendo has been ramping up DLC production in recent years. However, adding more DLCs to Sword and Shield comes at a price: it slows down Generation 9. The Galar region can’t host Pokemon content forever; eventually, Nintendo will have to move on to another region and tell a new story. If Nintendo keeps focusing on Galar for years on end, fans will get impatient for the next generation, especially those that felt let down by Galar. A couple DLCs more might not do much harm, but there’s a balance to strike.
As a general rule, Pokemon games have released at a pretty steady rate. Usually, Nintendo starts a new generation of Pokemon once every three or four years after a region gets two or three (or sometimes four) mainline games. In between, Nintendo has developed a habit of revisiting old Pokemon regions in updated games like Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. All this considered, there’s certainly a huge team working on the games in order to produce so many games so quickly.
Sword and Shield are setting up a contrast to the traditional development schedule of the series. Until now, Pokemon games have never really gotten paid DLC, so it’s unclear what that means for the rate at which new games come out. It could be that the current generation goes without much (if anything) in the way of spin-offs or revisits to previous regions, since Nintendo is putting a lot of resources into Galar instead. What that boils down to is that Nintendo is looking less to Pokemon‘s future than before, as it looking at the short-term now. It wouldn’t be trying new mechanics in old regions or going back to its roots to look for things to change.
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The hope, then, is that these Sword and Shield DLCs will be a useful testing ground for Nintendo instead of side games. In fact, there’s the possibility that an expansion substitutes for a side game by revisiting a region on its own. Since Galar is inspired by the United Kingdom and Kalos is inspired by France, the two regions are probably very close to each other, and players might be able to visit Kalos by boat, train, or plane. Of course, that would be a really ambitious DLC, and surely require a lot more development and money than the other expansions, unless only a very small amount of Kalos was available.
There’s no guarantee that that will actually happen, or that there will even be a third DLC after The Crown Tundra. There’s always a chance that Nintendo decides it’s satisfied with its work after two bonus adventures and starts planning a new game after all. On the other hand, considering that Nintendo unexpected announced a whole new wave of DLCs for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate earlier this year, it might have developed a very serious new fascination with paid expansions. Hopefully, that doesn’t in the way of charting unknown frontiers of Pokemon down the line.
Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are available now for the Switch.
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