Announced back in February, there has been a lot more information released regarding Pokémon Sword and Shield. At E3, GameFreak announced a slew of new information about the game, including a ton of new mechanics. But it’s not all additions only, as producer Junichi Masuda revealed that you cannot transfer in Pokémon that doesn’t exist in the new Galar region.
According to Masuda, it’s an issue of quality over quantity. He says that the Nintendo Switch was powerful enough to better express individual Pokémon. But at the same time, having over 800 different Pokémon, the developer decided to not stretch the game’s development time by adding higher definition models of so many Pokémon. Battle balance was also said to be another factor.
You can listen to the segment yourself at the 25:15 timestamp in the video above. As mentioned earlier, this means that all Pokémon not found in the new Galar region won’t be allowed in. That said, we don’t yet know details of the Galar Pokémon population, so chances are your favourites will still make the cut.
Starting from the 3DS games and prior to Sword and Shield, Pokémon can be transferred to a paid subscription service called Pokémon Bank. These Pokémon can then be transferred to newer mainline 3DS games, letting players carry over their teams from previous generations. The service itself is scheduled to be revamped into Pokémon Home, which will also allow transfers from the mobile game Pokémon Go as well as last year’s Switch title, Pokémon Let’s Go.
(Source: Nintendo / YouTube via Engadget)
