Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, Pokémon Legends: Arceus release dates announced

The release dates for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, Pokémon Shining Pearl and Pokémon Legends: Arceus have
all been revealed by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl will launch on 19th November 2021, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus will be out on 28th January 2022 for Nintendo Switch.

The games were announced back in February, with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl a long-expected remake of the classic Nintendo DS games. Being remade by ILCA Inc. who made Pokémon Home, they have placed an emphasis on being faithful to the original adventures. While rendered in full 3D, the game is played from the top-down view when running around the world, the towns and routes all having their dimensions and placements preserved. Things get more interesting in battles where you see the more realistic proportions of human character (but still super anime) and the 3D Pokémon models.

Battle sequences will now look closer to Pokémon Let’s Go, or Pokémon Sword & Shield.

Much more radical is Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which is coming from Game Freak themselves. It still takes place in Sinnoh region from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, but jumps far, far back in time to before there were Pokémon Leagues and Pokémon Trainers. The game features Rowlet, Cyndaquill and Oshawatt as the starter Pokémon that you can choose, having been brought to the region by a visiting professor who’s eager to discover more about this region’s wildlife.

You’ll be able to catch Pokémon out in the wild simply by bopping them on the head with a Poké Ball, but you can also engage them in battle with your ally Pokémon. The game adopts the same full 3D style as Pokémon Sword & Shield in 2019, but the camera angle event more like a modern 3D action RPG. It builds on the more open world elements of Sword & Shield as well, with the game’s description and pretty much everything about the trailer suggesting a wide open world to explore in the vein of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The story will revolve in some way around the legendary Pokémon Arceus, who is said to have shaped the region. How it features is obviously being kept under wraps for the time being. Will it tie into the events of later games somehow? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Source: press release