Pokémon Scarlet and Violet getting two-part expansion
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will receive a fully fledged expansion, The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, The Pokémon Company announced during today’s Pokémon Presents livestream. Hold your Rapidashes, though: It’s not coming out until later in the year.
The DLC will broken up into two parts: The Teal Mask, planned for a fall 2023 release on Nintendo Switch, and the Indigo Disk, planned for a winter 2023 release.
Pokémon games have always been exercises in iteration. Pokémon Red and Blue were followed by Pokémon Yellow; Pokémon Gold and Silver were followed by Pokémon Crystal. The notion of iterating evolved into true sequels (see: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2). For 2019’s Pokémon Sword and Shield — the first mainline games to release on Nintendo Switch — developer GameFreak did away with the idea of subsequent entries, instead opting to support the game with a duo of expansions: The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra.
Both The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra were magnets for the type of controversy that seem minor but end up exploding into a Whole Thing. Pokémon Sword and Shield did not launch with every Pokémon in the Pokédex; each expansion expanded the game’s Pokédex by quite a bit, leaving a pay-to-win aftertaste for many fans.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet similarly did not launch with every Pokémon, featuring a scant 400 at its November 2022 launch. Today’s cinematic trailer showed off two new Pokémon — presumably legendaries, neither of whom were named — but did not showcase any notable legacy additions to Scarlet and Violet’s Pokédex.
Read more on polygon.com
