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New Pokémon Legends: Arceus Game, Pokémon Diamond/Pokémon Pearl Remakes Announced for Switch

The Pokémon Company International announced during its Pokémon Presents livestream presentation on Friday a new game in the series titled Pokémon Legends: Arceus that will launch worldwide for Nintendo Switch in early 2022.

The game will feature a more open 3D style reminiscent of the Wild Area in the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield games. The game will take place in the past of the Sinnoh region from the Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games. The story will also involve the mythical Pokémon Arceus. Starter Pokémon include Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawatt.

The company also announced that the Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl Nintendo DS games are getting remakes on Switch titled Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl, respectively. The games will launch worldwide in late 2021.

ILCA (Pokémon Home) is developing the remakes. ILCA's Yuichi Ueda and GAME FREAK's Junichi Masuda are directing the games.

The original Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games launched for the DS in Japan in 2006, and in the West in 2007.

The company also unveiled a new trailer for its New Pokémon Snap game.

New Pokémon Snap will launch for Switch on April 30. Bandai Namco Studios is developing the New Pokémon Snap game. The game, inspired by the 1999 Pokémon Snap game for the Nintendo 64, lets players photograph Pokémon to complete a Pokémon Photodex for Professor Mirror and his assistant Rita. Players visit a variety of environments in the new Lental region using the auto-driving Neo-One vehicle and capture unique Pokémon behaviors on camera. They may interact with Pokémon by throwing a fluffruit. Some Pokémon and vegetation also emit a glow, known as the Illumina phonemenon. Professor Mirror evaluates and score players' photos.

The Pokémon Company International will stream a virtual concert featuring Post Malone on the franchise's official YouTube channel, Twitch channel, and 25th anniversary website. The concert will happen at 7:00 p.m. EST on February 27 (also known as Pokémon Day), and it will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green games' releases in Japan.

The concert will serve as the launch for P25 Music, a global music project, a collaboration between the Pokémon franchise, Universal Music Group, and musical artists including Katy Perry. The concert will reveal more details about P25 Music.

Pokémon Journeys: The Series, the franchise's latest anime series, premiered on TV Tokyo and its affiliates in November 2019. The first 12 episodes of the anime debuted in the United States on Netflix last June, and the service is adding new episodes quarterly. Netflix will stream the anime's fourth and final batch of episodes of March 5.

Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle (Gekijōban Pocket Monster Koko), the 23rd anime film in the Pokémon franchise, opened in Japan on December 25. The film will open in the West this year.

The Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield games shipped worldwide for the Switch in November 2019. The games sold more than 6 million copies in their first week to break the records for highest first-week sales of a Switch game and the fastest Switch game to reach 6 million units sold.

Source: Pokémon Presents livestream