Yep, that’s right, the next Generation of Pokémon is already on its way! Game Freak announced today that Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet will be releasing this year on the Nintendo Switch.

Set in what seems to be a Spanish-inspired region, Scarlet and Violet combine a lot of Sword and Shield’s traditional Galar Region with Pokémon Legends Arceus’ Hisui Region to bring a truly, reportedly ‘seamless’ open world Pokémon game at last.

The Pokémon Company claims that “various towns blend seamlessly into the wilderness with no borders. You’ll be able to see the Pokémon of this region in the skies, in the seas, in the forests, on the streets – all over! You’ll be able to experience the true joy of the Pokémon series—battling against wild Pokémon in order to catch them—now in an open-world game that players of any age can enjoy.”

In the trailer released today we can certainly see a lot of very similar DNA from Pokémon Legends Arceus in play, including what seems to be the seamless battles and possibly even the capture mechanics that are at the heart of Legends Arceus’ big value-adding updates to the Pokémon formula.

Also revealed are the three starter Pokémon, all of whom actually maintain their Spanish localised names in the English version of the games.

Sprigatito
Category: Grass Cat Pokémon
Height: 1′4″
Weight: 9 lbs.
Type: Grass
Ability: Overgrow
The capricious, attention-seeking Grass Cat Pokémon.

Fuecoco
Category: Fire Croc Pokémon
Height: 1′4″
Weight: 21.6 lbs.
Type: Fire
Ability: Blaze
The laid-back Fire Croc Pokémon that does things at its own pace.

Quaxly
Category: Duckling Pokémon
Height: 1′8″
Weight: 13.4 lbs.
Type: Water
Ability: Torrent
The earnest and tidy Duckling Pokémon.

Pokémon Home functionality has also already been confirmed, and will allow transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Legends Arceus, such as Hisuian Zoroark, forward into these games. Though it will remain to be seen whether or not the game will feature the entire National PokéDex, following the quite loud fan outcry about Sword and Shield’s relatively limited PokéDex.

Finally, we have one last note about the player characters in each game: the school uniform outfit you will start out in (assuming that you can customise your appearance as in most other modern Pokémon games) will be different depending on whether you are playing Scarlet or Violet version. This might indicate a few other changes we can expect to see depending on which version you’re playing, as well as the usual Pokémon availability differences. We’ll have to wait and see!

The full trailer for the new games is at the top of the post. We’ll not only be sure to bring you everything about Scarlet and Violet as it comes throughout the year but very soon we’ll have some exciting news to share with you about how we’ll be doing so *even better*, so please look forward to that and our very own PokéCharms day next month for even more!