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Chief director of Pokopia at Koei Tecmo, Takuto Edagawa, has outlined the "cloud island" feature in Pokemon's upcoming life sim, where worlds hosted on online servers will be able to register an unlimited number of players, but only four can be present at a time.
In an interview with Famitsu, translated by GamesRadar+, Edagawa describes the new feature, which has never been part of Pokemon games. While you can join your friend's game of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, you both need to be online at the same time in order to play. You also can't interact with many different parts of the world.
"There is a different system that is unique to this game called the 'cloud island'," Edagawa describes. "This is an island that everyone can create together, and even if the host (the island's owner) is not online, everyone is free to join and play. If you can't find the time to meet up and play together, you can still work together to build the island little by little in your free time."
This system is similar to the persistent private servers that are a core part of Minecraft's design. While you can choose to create your own little Minecraft world that no one else can touch, many decide to build something together as part of a community effort.
However, unlike Minecraft, there is a very limited hard cap on the number of people who can join a server at once. "Only four people can play at the same time," Edagawa explains. "But as it's possible for players to swap in and out, there isn't a limit to the number of people [that can work together on one island]."
