Pokémon Scarlet and Violet arrives later this year, keeping a fan-favorite feature from Arceus

techradar.com:

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is the next mainline game to release in the pocket monster series and will be making its way to Nintendo Switch later this year.

Announced during February’s Pokémon Presents, Scarlet and Violet will introduce the ninth Generation of Pokémon, three new starters, and a new region to explore across an open-world map. It’s under development at Game Freak, the same studio that released Pokémon Legends: Arceus in late January earlier this year.

Nintendo is framing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet as a big advancement in the Pokémon series, describing it as “a new evolutionary step” that will allow you to “explore freely in a richly expressed open world.”

Towns will “blend seamlessly into the wilderness with no borders”, and you’ll get to “see the Pokémon of this region in the skies, in the seas, in the forests, on the streets.”

The game’s three starter Pokémon include the Grass Cat Sprigatito, who has the Overgrow ability and is described as capricious and attention-seeking; the Duckling Quaxly, which Nintendo says is earnest and has the Torrent ability; and the Fire Croc Fuecoco who’s laid back and has the Blaze ability.

You can watch them in all of their incredibly cute glory in the announcement trailer below.

As is tradition with the Pokémon video games, Scarlet and Violet will be largely identical, although the outfit of your Trainer will change depending on which game you’re playing.

There are a couple of big takeaways from Nintendo’s reveal of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The first is just how adorable the three new starters are. Quaxly might well take the mantle for the cutest cartoon duck to ever exist, and that’s really saying something given the numerous Disney competitors it’s having to contend with.

But