Pokemon Winds and Waves have been confirmed, ushering in Gen 10 in 2027. But while today is a period of celebration among the entire community, marking 30 years since the original launch of the very first games in the series, it's also a day I'm wary of, because it reminds me that we've been here before - and Game Freak might not get away with a repeat of what happened last time.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were undeniable successes for Nintendo, shipping a combined 28 million copies to surpass Sword and Shield and become the second best-selling entries in the series, within touching distance of the record established by Red and Blue. But now that Pokemon Winds and Waves are on the horizon, firmly cementing the open, living worlds that have increasingly come to define the series, it's important to remember that last time Game Freak tried that, it didn't go so well.
Wave goodbye
For all their financial success, Scarlet and Violet were ugly, poorly-optimized games. Their major selling point - the introduction of an entirely open world to the Pokemon series that would allow players to move freely around Paldea - failed as a gameplay experience thanks to a total lack of appropriate level scaling. As a graphical showcase, they fared even worse; crippling framerate issues meant even small groups of wild Pokemon brought the game chugging to a halt; comparisons to far older Switch games like Breath of the Wild or Xenoblade Chronicles 3 made Scarlet and Violet look hugely outdated; and a lack of enterable buildings made the region feel shallow and empty.
Winds and Waves can't really afford to make the same mistake. Financially, everyone involved will be just fine, but the same excuses that worked for Gen 9 might not carry so much water in Gen 10. For one thing, this is something of a double anniversary - a tenth mainline entry released in the series' 30th anniversary year. For another, this is new hardware - the Switch 2 is yet to really get its big, visual showpiece, but we do know that this is new tech that should fare better than its predecessor when it comes to visuals. Perhaps most importantly, this is no longer Game Freak's first rodeo. The studio has had multiple attempts at this kind of game, dating back as far as Sword and Shield, and including at least partially open worlds across two Legends games and Scarlet and Violet. And now that it's also making Beast of Reincarnation in the background, we know it knows exactly how to make a game that looks like it should hold its own in this generation.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, it's also becoming increasingly clear that it's been pushing the Poke-profit margins as far as it can. The massive Teraleak that originally leaked Winds and Waves alleged that barely $20 million was spent on developing Scarlet and Violet. That's a development budget that any other major franchise would cower in fear over, applied to a mainline entry in the single biggest entertainment in the world. Both the Gen 8 and Gen 9 games raked in a cool billion in revenue without breaking a sweat, and both of them look like they were made cheaply on hardware that can do far better.
There is good news. Most obvious is the quality of the visuals themselves. The Pokemon Winds and Waves trailer seems to show a world that looks notably better than its predecessors, with higher-fidelity shots, wider vistas, and fewer visible frame-rate sacrifices than the much-maligned Scarlet and Violet trailers. There are still a few points where I hope we might see improvement before release, but the sea - clearly a major player in the region's oceanic setting - does look like it's been given the kind of attention it needs. The coral reefs in the shallows might just be the best this series has looked since the 3DS.
But perhaps even more important is the timeline Nintendo's just opened up. Winds and Waves is scheduled for a 2027 release, skipping a 2026 launch that would have seen it drop as part of wider 30th anniversary celebrations. With the vast majority of mainline Nintendo games launching in the Fall, it could be almost two years before this game arrives in our hands. That five-year gap between generations would be the biggest in the series' history, and could mean that Nintendo and Game Freak are preparing to finally put the resource this franchise needs into the open-world expansion they've been working towards since 2019.
Look to the new generation with everything we know about the Pokemon Winds and Waves starters.
