Pokemon Scarlet & Pokemon Violet announced!

Today, the Pokemon Company hosted Pokemon Presents as part of Pokemon Day, where they talked about upcoming news and updates for various games such as Pokemon Go, Pokemon Cafe Mix, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The stream ended with the reveal of the 9th generation of the Pokemon games: Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet!

From what can be seen in the trailer, the games appear to be following up on the open-world gameplay that Pokemon Legends: Arceus built. The trailer showcased a few areas, such as some grassy plains, a forest, a desert, a beach, and a town. Some familiar Pokemon from past titles were also seen during this, such as Starly, Hoppip, Petilil, Bounsweet, Driftloon, Meowth, and of course, Pikachu.

But speaking of Pokemon, it also showed off the new three Starter Pokemon! A green cat called Sprigatito, a duck with what appears to be either a hat or some stylish hair called Quaxly, and a red crocodile-pepper-thing called Fuecoco.

The trailer also showed off what appears to be the protagonists. Unlike the Pokemon, their names were not revealed. (Though following Pokemon tradition - mainly the naming conventions that the Pokemon Adventures manga goes with - the boy's placeholder name will be Scarlet, while the girl's placeholder name will be Violet) Notably, their designs resemble how the humans looked in the spin-off game, New Pokemon Snap.

You can watch the trailer here! The game is planning to release in late 2022 for the Nintendo Switch.