Pokemon Sword and Shield producer addresses national Pokedex drama

Game Freak has shared a message from Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield producer Junichi Masuda, who addresses the criticism from fans following prior comment that some Pokemon cannot be transferred to the series’ latest release.

If you missed it, this is what Masuda said during the Nintendo: Treehouse Live broadcast at E3 2019 (via):

So in previous games that worked with the Pokemon Bank service you were able to—for example, in Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon—bring over any Pokemon even if they weren’t in the Alolan Pokedex.

But with the transition to the Nintendo Switch hardware, it’s more powerful, allowing us to be more expressive with each of the individual Pokemon.

And now we’re well over 800 Pokemon species in the games. At Game Freak, we’re really thinking about what the best way forward was, really preserving the quality of all the Pokemon, while also taking into account the battle balance—having so many different Pokemon available, all within a limited development time so we don’t keep fans waiting too long for every entry into the series.

And after a lot of discussion we decided to come to a new direction, and so what that means for Pokemon Sword and Shield is that players will be able trade their Pokemon from Pokemon Home only if they are in the Galar region Pokedex.

So we were really careful to decide on what Pokemon would match the setting of the adventure would be.

I’ll talk more about this in future opportunities, such as media interviews but I wanted to let you know today.

I know there are a lot of users of the Pokemon Bank service who want to bring their Pokemon to Home so I thought I would let you know well in advance.

Here is today’s full message addressing the fan criticism of that decision:

Thank you to all of our fans for caring so deeply about Pokemon. Recently, I shared the news that some Pokemon cannot be transferred to Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. I’ve read all your comments and appreciate your love and passion for Pokemon.

Just like all of you, we are passionate about Pokemon and each and every one of them is very important to us. After so many years of developing the Pokemon video games, this was a very difficult decision for me. I’d like to make one thing clear: even if a specific Pokemon is not available in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games.

The world of Pokemon continues to evolve. The Galar region offers new Pokemon to encounter, Trainers to battle, and adventures to embark on. We are pouring our hearts into these games, and we hope you will look forward to joining us on this new journey.

June 28, 2019

Junichi Masuda

Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield are due out for Switch on November 15.