Despite months with no updates, Pokémon Legends: Arceus may still be able to address its biggest missed opportunity by providing expansions similar to Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra and Isle of Armor DLCs. While some players disagree on whether Legends: Arceus constitutes a “mainline” Pokémon title or a spin-off, it revitalized a largely stagnant franchise and offers arguably the best Pokémon game to date. Beyond its gameplay innovations, Pokémon Legends: Arceus placed more emphasis on story than prior Pokémon titles and featured some of the series' best characters. Many threads of Legends: Arceus’ plot deserve an expansion to provide answers to the game’s mysteries. These enticing bits of Pokémon lore may remain forever cryptic if Legends: Arceus does not receive DLC.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus abandons the formulaic Pokémon structure revolving around a young trainer leaving home on a quest to become the region champion. Instead, players travel back in time to help the Mythical Pokémon Arceus solve a mysterious riddle in the historic Hisui region. While some may feel Legends: Arceus moved Pokémon in the wrong direction, the game’s changes are also a much-needed break from the repetition of past plotlines. Pokémon Legends: Arceus' story also holds more urgency than a typical Pokémon narrative, with many time-sensitive major events urging players forward, but many plotlines are left unfinished at the conclusion of the game.
Ending the frenzies of the region’s Noble Pokémon is a central concern in Legends: Arceus, rather than a threat that seems incidental to the goal of becoming the best trainer. In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, the player averts a plot by Team Galactic to destroy and remake the world, but this is treated as peripheral to the quest to become the Sinnoh region’s Pokémon Champion. By focusing more on legitimate threats instead of personal ambitions, Legends: Arceus made its narrative stronger. Its story included intriguing elements, like the secretive past of Pokemon Legends’ Cogita, what became of Volo after his defeat, and why characters like Ingo were transported to the past before the game’s protagonist. These mysteries are given more weight thanks to Legends: Arceus’ story having real stakes. It is a game where the hero sets out to save the region and study Pokémon, rather than one where those are ancillary elements on yet another journey to “be the very best.”
Legends: Arceus Deserves DLC Like Pokémon Sword And Shield's
Due to the number of unanswered questions still left in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the game needs DLC to be considered complete. The quality of the game itself also gives players reason to want more journeys in its established world. Legends: Arceus included a novel, real-time approach to capturing Pokémon, where the player is more often the predator hiding in tall grass waiting for the perfect time to lob a Poké Ball, instead of roaming the foliage in expectation of random encounters. Unfortunately, the Hisui-era Poké Balls added to Pokemon Home seem to be the closest thing to Legends: Arceus DLC at present. Legends: Arceus provided more verisimilitude, with gameplay that added to immersion instead of taking away from it. Progression to new environments in Legends: Arceus was gated behind Pokédex completion (proving the hero's competence to enter dangerous locales) or obtaining the services of Noble Pokémon mounts - game mechanics with in-fiction logical coherence. A well-constructed DLC expansion could build on these gameplay improvements, while letting Legends: Arceus tell the rest of its story.
Though Pokémon Legends did receive an update with the Daybreak patch several months ago, it added more gameplay features, but not much in the way of new story content or new areas to explore. That patch’s introduction of new challenges from trainers or Arceus itself gave players with endgame parties a way to test their skills, certainly, but it did not expand on the narrative. Daybreak introduced Legends: Arceus’ mass outbreaks, an arguably tedious method for acquiring rare Pokémon, thanks to its reliance on random number generation. This patch was a poor substitute for the robust DLC expansions Sword and Shield received. Crown Tundra’s charming narrative allowed players to explore legends and lore alongside Peony, a memorable character who served as a more than adequate replacement for the franchise’s absentee fathers. Isle of Armor was a similarly engaging story where Pokémon was restructured into a classic martial arts training narrative, as the player trains under the strict tutelage of dojo master Mustard.
While Pokemon Sword and Shield received its two expansive DLCs, it seems Legends: Arceus may not receive any expansions of the same caliber. Pokémon Legends featured just as many memorable characters as any prior game in the series. From the Galaxy expedition group’s enthusiastic Professor Laventon and stoic Commander Kamado to the dueling clan leaders Adaman and Irida, the game’s cast oozed personality. Although it might be time to give up on Legends: Arceus DLC, with new franchise sequels on the way, more adventures with these likeable characters would be a welcome surprise. Adding new areas to explore and new Pokémon to capture and catalog are a given for any expansion. The characters and lore of Legends: Arceus provide just as much reason to be excited for a potential expansion as a bigger map and a larger number on the Pokédex.
The Best Story In The Pokémon Franchise Deserves An Expansion
By shifting away from the repetitive narrative structure and gameplay formula of prior Pokémon titles, and focusing on a story with real stakes, Legends: Arceus expanded its appeal to all fans of Japanese RPGs, not just those of the Pokémon franchise. The open areas featured a more organic approach to hunting Pokémon, making for a more immersive experience, and the game provided a jolt of energy to a series that had become increasingly stagnant and formulaic. Some fans want more Pokémon prequels instead of sequels, to recapture Legends: Arceus’ unique vibe. More Pokémon games that move beyond the series’ aging rubric would certainly be welcome, but there are still mysteries from ancient Hisui that deserve to be explored, and more stories to be told.
Without a doubt, Legends: Arceus deserves a quality DLC expansion. Even if such an expansion never happens, and the game is left with dangling plot hooks, genre fans can be grateful for the what it provided. With or without an expansion, Pokémon Legends: Arceus brought the series renewed respectability as a quality JRPG, instead of yet another reiteration of a formula laid out in the era of the original Game Boy, but an expansion could let the series' best story come to a more satisfying conclusion.