One of the world's biggest media franchises is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary next month. Pokémon started back in 1996 with Red, Blue and Green versions in Japan and started the first bout of "Pokémania" after making their way around the world. With so many mediums covered, the mainline video games are one of the biggest earners in the franchise.
With The Pokémon Company accustomed to doing something special whenever a milestone year arrives, fans are eagerly awaiting, speculating, and theorizing what we could see announced next month and released this year. A particular set of highly-requested remakes are a possibility, but fans are hoping for some fresh, exciting changes to the games one way or another. Here are 10 notable speculations and theories that could be realized.
Diamond & Pearl Remakes
Addressing the elephant in the room first, remakes of the beloved gen four Sinnoh games, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, have been speculated and highly-requested since not long after Ruby and Sapphire got their remakes. Even back then, the gen three Hoenn games getting remakes became a long-running meme, and the topic has been debated to death.
While Sword and Shield sold like the hottest of hotcakes, the reception of them among longtime fans generally fell flat, as the games were simplified and watered down even further, despite Pokémon being pretty easy by nature, so potential D/P remakes coming out half-baked is a concern. Nonetheless, hopes are high that tradition holds true, and, should these hypothetical games finally take bold new directions and more constructive fan feedback into account, fans could finally have games that reach the heights of HeartGold and SoulSilver.
Let's Go Johto
Since we're due for another pair of major Pokémon game releases this year—since last year was all Sword/Shield DLC—Let's Go games set in the Johto region are seemingly the only logical answer if fans still don't get Diamond/Pearl remakes. While being pretty bare-bones and having infuriating motion controls in docked mode on the Nintendo Switch, Let's Go, Pikcahu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were good, bright, fun, and nostalgic romps in familiar territory with an entertaining-enough gameplay gimmick—so long as you're playing in handheld mode.
Therefore, it could be great to see the Johto region get more love in another pair of remakes since Kanto has gotten oversaturated. As long as the motion controls are fixed up, Let's Go Johto games (Pichu! and Togepi! perhaps?) would be great sequels that build on the success of the original pair.
GB/GBC Ports
This would be an incredibly easy and money-raking plan, as the foundation has already been built, but GameFreak could take the Virtual Console 3DS ports of Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal onto a Switch Virtual Console. The classic Kanto games were ported to the Nintendo 3Ds as part of the 20th Anniversary, with the Johto games having followed soon after.
Virtual Console support is a huge fan request for Switch, so doing this would be the bare minimum, yet helpful nonetheless. The alternative is through Switch Online's subscription service, but that'd understandably incite collective groans. GameFreak would hardly have to try to do this, and it should be the transition into going further in the Virtual Console department, which brings us to the next two entries.
GBA Ports
Porting over what's already been ported over onto the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console should be the bare minimum at best, as with the success and capabilities of the Nintendo Switch, GameFreak should take further steps. It shouldn't be much effort in terms of game development standards, so they should bring over Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen at some point, as well.
It's not much of a step up from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, and the re-releases would practically print money, especially with Wi-Fi trading, battling, and programming in the former special event legendaries, once only obtainable at physical special-event locations. They could even stagger the releases if they wanted, like with Gold and Silver releasing before Crystal on 3DS VC.
DS Ports
While the added gimmick of touch screens making things a bit more complex here, it's got to be doable in some way to afterward port the DS games Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black 2, and White 2. Of course, that's quite the catalog, so these would also likely have to be staggered releases.
Especially so for the DS Sinnoh games if D/P remakes are the order for 2021, so, depending on the perspective, the original ports may have to come sometime after potential remakes unless they think of interactive feature(s) between the two pairs of games. If The World Ends With You could recieve an effective Switch port with its very-complex touch-screen gimmick, these games should be far simpler to port over.
Diamond, Pearl & Platinum Ports Specifically If Let's Go Johto Is Next
A way to get certain VC ports plus a pair of major releases in the same year would be porting Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum onto Switch first, specifically if GameFreak were to end up launching Let's Go Johto games this winter. It wouldn't clash with D/P remakes and would make good appetizers for the big releases in November (presumably).
Likewise, these ports would serve as great preludes into hypothetical November 2022 releases of D/P remakes. This first pair of ports could come in the spring/early summer of 2021, and Platinum could follow in the fall before the major winter releases.
Mythical/Legendary Pokémon Giveaways
Something that would be unsurprising, especially since this already happened during the series' 20th anniversary, is for GameFreak to have a year-long online giveaway campaign for periodically giving away free mythical/legendary Pokémon for fans' copies of Sword and Shield. A good opportunity for players to get rare and/or otherwise unobtainable Pokémon, though it has drawn some disappointment over time.
That's because, even though the original issue was being tough to go to certain places for event distributions, online distribution replaced the in-game side-quest events for these rare species that made them more fun and rewarding to participate in. Nonetheless, it would be good that this would inevitably have special compatibility with this year's main games.
Pokémon GO
Despite launching in a half-broken "Steam Early-Access"-style state back in 2016, Pokémon GO, if nothing else, helped inspire a second major wave "Pokémania." It's gotten more support over the years, even though it really should have had more time to bake in the oven, and it has incorporated more fixes, features, and gameplay mechanics that's helped its longevity.
GO has had special events going on in certain points of the year, so it'd also be unsurprising to see Niantic do something special in-game for the 25th. It could also involve some exclusive tie-in feature compatible with the new games in the winter.
Anime
Another big money-maker in the franchise is the anime TV series and its coinciding movies. It's pretty much annual with either medium, and, therefore, details on a new project in TV and/or a movie would also be unsurprising. Meanwhile, getting a firm release date for the 23rd movie in the West could easily be in the cards.
Similarly, an eventual successor to the Journeys TV anime season could be announced, as well. Both could hypothetically tie into the premise of whichever pair of games will release late this year in some capacity.
New Spin-Off Game
Fans are already getting a long-awaited sequel to the beloved Nintendo 64 Pokémon Snap with New Pokémon Snap this April, and it will hopefully build upon the nostalgic fun of the original and some inventive new gameplay mechanics, along with its gorgeous visuals. However, while not stacking up to the best games in the mainline, spinoffs are an entertaining way to expand the IP genre-wise in between core releases.
TPC could capitalize on Snap's hype by making an announcement/reveal of a new spinoff for further down the line. It could be a sequel to an existing spin-off series, perhaps a Detective Pikachu Switch sequel, or the start of a new one altogether.