They say they can now develop projects of “a similar scale” to Pokemon, simultaneously with the ever-popular series.
Game Freak, the creator and long-time developer of one of the most popular video game franchises of all time, Pokemon, recently openly expressed its desire to make games based on new IPs and have them be as beloved as Pokemon itself.
Though Game Freak has long made other games outside the Pokemon brand, these have usually been of a much smaller scale and budget. In a recent interview with Video Games Chronicle, Game Freak’s Development General Manager, Masafumi Saito, expressed his belief that the studio could now make original titles of “a similar scale” to Pokemon, while simultaneously developing Pokemon games.
The main purpose of this interview was to discuss one of these smaller-scale titles. In 2013, Game Freak developed a card-game/horse-racing hybrid called Pocket Card Jockey for the Nintendo 3DS, and, recently, the studio released a remaster for the title, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!, which is currently available on Apple Arcade. This game spawned from the studio’s so-called Gear Project, an initiative created so that developers could pitch ideas that weren’t Pokemon-related, so as to let them flex their creativity in a different context and feel refreshed.
Originally, Gear Project was outlined so that devs could only do this in slower parts of the studio’s cycles, and they could seemingly only create smaller-scale games that wouldn’t take too much development time away from Pokemon. Saito suggests that this has changed. Firstly, he outlines the importance of Game Freak continuing to make original IPs. “I think that creating a game from scratch,” he stated to VGC, “putting it out there, and getting a good reception is a great motivator for creators.”
He further details that Game Freak does not want to limit these original games to small-scale projects. Saito explains that when Gear Project began, about ten years ago, devs had to work on these titles while also developing Pokemon. “Now we work with external companies so that we can start experimenting with moving on projects on a similar scale simultaneously.” He then adds that they want Gear Project titles to be “beloved by lots of people across the world, like the Pokémon series has been.”
Exactly what external companies Game Freak is referring to is unclear. Though there are more external studios than ever working on the Pokemon IP, these mostly develop spinoff titles that are additive to the mainline series of games. Saito may be talking about ILCA, the studio that made the Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes. If Pokemon continues to outsource its remakes, then it could have more dev time for other projects, however, this may still be a challenge, as their most recent title, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, was riddled with bugs and glitches.
