Many fans are eagerly awaiting news about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the next games in the series for Nintendo Switch. It’s been several months without any major news and estimates are already being made as to when we might hear news.
The games were announced last February and dated at the end of May. From this, the following calculations are being made.
As for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl…
- Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be released in approximately 5 months (on November 19, 2021).
- The Pokémon Company seems to be following a different strategy to that used with Pokémon Sword and Shield, which had its own Direct in June 2019.
- This leaves a fairly limited window, which would point to an almost imminent release of new features to leave a wide promotional period from these new images that would be about to be shown and the final promotion of the game in its final stretch, during the month of release.
- The fact that the Switch OLED announcement showed updated footage of the game also suggests that there doesn’t appear to be any delay and that we may soon see new, real footage of the game.
As for Pokémon Legends: Arceus, we should note that it’s still a little while away from its release date of 28 January 2022. With this in mind, …
- The game’s development should already be well underway and updated gameplay footage should be shown imminently.
- Perhaps The Pokémon Company could use a new Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl trailer to show us a few more scenes, but then again, there are also those who think they’ll focus on the remakes first to try and boost sales as much as possible and leave Pokémon Legends: Arceus all but forgotten until the end of the year.
From this, two theories unfold:
- Separate: There is speculation of a presentation dedicated entirely to Pokémon Legends: Arceus towards the end of the year, to showcase the full potential of this release and maximise its sales in January 2022. Prior to this presentation, The Pokémon Company would primarily focus on promoting Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
- Joint promotion: Others like Joe Merrick of Serebii believe that a joint promotion of the two games is nevertheless on the way: “I have a theory as to why things have been quiet since the announcement of BDSP/Legends, unusually in comparison to previous games. My theory is that the reveal cycles we will see will focus on Legends, with BDSP. As such, since Legends comes out 2 months later, there will be reveals for this game as well.” In this way, The Pokémon Company could be waiting to have screenshots ready to show of both games at the same time.
I do have a theory about why things have been quiet since the BDSP/Legends reveal, unusually so compared to past games.
— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) July 6, 2021
My theory is that the reveal cycles we're going to see will be focused around Legends, with BDSP. As such, as Legends is out 2 months later, so will be reveals