Discussing the Pokémon TeraLeak
A little while ago there was a massive leak revealing a huge amount of Pokemon projects and the future of the franchise. This leak was the real deal as it showed our first look at Project Gaia, what was revealed at Pokemon Day to be Wind and Waves. There’s two projects I want to look at primarily.
It goes without saying there's potentially really big spoilers for Pokémon projects to come in the future so if you don't want those spoiled, stop reading now!
Project Ringo (Pokemon Legends Galar)
Legends seems to be where Pokemon is trying out new gameplay styles rather than the traditional turn-based gameplay of the main games and that’s pretty cool. Arceus had Agile/Strong style, Z-A had free movement and Galar is changing it again with... Pikmin style? Legends Galar is seemingly going to be set 1000 years before Sword/Shield and has the player commanding up to 30 Pokemon vs Dynamaxed Pokemon. No idea how that’s gonna work but even considering the idea is interesting.
The only other thing we know is that there’s a variant of Galarian Slowking in the concept art, he seems to be more yellow like Slowpoke and also a chef? Interesting that historical variants of regional variants might be a thing now.
Legends Z-A was originally a Johto based Legends game so there’s no guarantee Galar even remains the subject of this game or if the 30v1 stays but it’ll be interesting to see.
Project Seed
This one is very ambitious and so has the chance to be great or rubbish depending but from the limited information we know, this is an MMO title set across the five Japanese regions of Pokemon – Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and even Kitikami (which was a pleasant surprise). The premise being that you freely explore these locales and in theory could travel from the south of Hoenn all the way to the north of Sinnoh without a loading screen.
While it may seem ambitious for Pokemon, with a bit of redesign of the regions (none have modern 3D Scarlet and Violet like) this could be very plausible. No idea what the plot is or anything like that, could be gyms or it could be evil teams (Rocket, Galactic or even Aqua/Magma) but the idea is tempting.
Pokemon from the first four regions were all fairly connected, Gen 2 evolutions to Gen 1 Pokemon, Gen 4 evolutions. Could add more modern evolutions like Wyrdeer, Dudunsparce, Annihilape as well as the relevant regional forms. The only kind of fly in the ointment Pokedex wise is Kitikami, which does have a fair few pokemon from Gens 5-9, but some of those could easily be integrated like the Applin and Polchageist lines.
I don’t really play MMO’s but I do know enough to say that Pokémon probably won't follow the format exactly, but stuff like housing (or even a Sc/Vio style dorm room) would be nice, choose which city and region you would like to stay in.
Of course as legitimate as these leaks are, the timelines in game development are always shifting and changing. Wind and Waves is making the unprescedented decision to skip a year, instead releasing in 2027, so these projects might have shifted too. If nothing else, it’s something to look forward to being properly revealed.
