Pokemon Legends: Arceus release date revealed for January 2022

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We'll finally be venturing into the Sinnoh region early next year

Pokemon Legends Arceus
(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

Pokemon Legends: Arceus release date has been revealed as January 28, 2022.

Earlier today on May 26, a new website went live for Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Although the website is in Japanese, we've translated the part that pertains to the release date on the website, where date-specific Kanji align to give the new Pokemon game a release date of January 28, 2022.

The Pokemon Company also tweeted out the Western box art as well, which you can see below. 

We finally have a date for when we'll be playing the new, bold entry in the Pokemon franchise. If you weren't already aware, Pokemon Legends: Arceus does away with the turn-based battles of past Pokemon games, opting instead for a real-time battle system with fully open-world exploration. In short, it looks like something that takes inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in the way that it presents a lush and vast region for the player to explore, entirely at their own will.

Arceus is set to be a big departure for the Pokemon series. This is the first Pokemon game that's fully committed to 3D, open-world exploration, and is actually going to be set in a "feudal" version of the Sinnoh region. In other words, we're going to be traveling back hundreds of years into the past, before any of the current Pokemon games like Sword and Shield take place in the modern version of the Pokemon world. It'll be interesting to see how the Pokemon world was before the arrival of modern technology.

If you're unfamiliar with the title of the game itself, Arceus is actually an extremely powerful Pokemon. Arceus is a Normal-type Pokemon that can weigh up to 320kg, and actually first appeared in the Pokemon games all the way back in the Sinnoh region in Gen 4.

For a full list of all the other games Nintendo has lined up for their console over the coming year, head over to our upcoming Switch games guide for more.

Hirun Cryer
Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.