Now is not the time for Pokmon to take a break | Opinion
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Monday 28th February 2022
The Pokmon Company
By the end of this year, Game Freak will have developed and released four major Pokémon games for Nintendo Switch.
Even that undersells the developer's output over the past five years, which has also included major DLC expansions, a Pokémon spin-off and numerous games not connected to Pikachu and friends.
Despite being one of the most prolific developers of the generation, Game Freak has attracted the ire of some fans who have labelled the studio as 'lazy' for the visual and technical quality of its games.
The insult is inaccurate, but the broad criticism is understandable. Pokémon is one of the biggest game franchises in the world -- all three major games released on Nintendo Switch are in the Top Ten best-selling games for the platform. Yet visually and technically they are lacking compared to similar RPGs on the console. The latest game, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, is one of the best titles Game Freak has ever made. But when you compare the look of the game to similar titles, such as Zelda or Monster Hunter, you can understand why some gamers might feel disappointed.
"Instead of taking years to deliver a fully realised open world Pokémon, Game Freak has been gradually getting there title-by-title"
The whole situation really came to the fore during the PR campaign for 2019's Sword and Shield, when Game Freak took the decision not to incorporate all the available Pokémon creatures due to the amount of time and effort required. The view from certain fans was that the developer had been lazy, and wasn't using its considerable resources to deliver the experience they expect.
From the perspective of a portable game developer (which Game Freak is) the
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