For Pokemon's 25th anniversary, The Pokemon Company announced not one, but three games: Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, and Pokemon Shining Pearl. The latter two are remakes of the 2006 titles Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl. Rather than being handled by Game Freak, the developer responsible for all the mainline Pokemon games, these remakes were developed by ILCA. While Game Freak worked on Pokemon Legends Arceus, a new iteration on the Sinnoh region in the world of Pokemon, ILCA brought the Nintendo DS titles to the Nintendo Switch.

This strategy of sharing a franchise between different game developers is not unheard of. Call of Duty games were first developed by Infinity Ward, but are now also made by Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software. The Pokemon Company, and by extension Game Freak, could allow for more remakes--or perhaps new games--to be made by other studios as well.

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The Importance of the ILCA Remakes

The 2021 Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes are the first mainline game remakes to be developed by a studio other than Game Freak. ILCA brought a new look to the games, optimizing them for the Nintendo Switch, a console with more power and clarity than the Nintendo DS. Fans appreciate remakes of past Pokemon games for many reasons, one of which being that older games are harder to access. New players may not have old hardware, like a Game Boy or Nintendo DS, and thus titles like the original Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are inaccessible.

Sharing Development Means Quick Release Schedules

Remakes, despite being based off of existing games, take time to develop; sometimes they even take as long as something totally new. Game Freak wants to provide players with all new games, like the upcoming Pokemon Legends Z-A, while also celebrating past titles and bringing them to new audiences, as can be seen with remakes like Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Brilliant Diamond, and Shining Pearl. The studio could take direction from the Call of Duty franchise and allow for other studios to lead development on one game, while Game Freak handles another. This is how players get to enjoy annual Call of Duty releases. Infinity Ward works in tandem with Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, and Raven Software.

Pokemon Company Chief Creative Fellow Junichi Masuda, who was with Game Freak from its inception until 2022, oversaw the development of the ILCA remakes as the director. In the future, Game Freak could continue to loan out experienced staff members to other game studios as they help to develop, or remake, Pokemon games. This could be a way for more Pokemon games to be released without putting too much pressure on Game Freak.

By working in tandem with other developers, Game Freak could avoid rushing to publish new Pokemon games. Crunch development schedules hurt all devs, and don't result in inherently better games than those with slower development periods. If ILCA, or other studios, were entrusted with remakes, that would leave Game Freak free to take its time developing new titles. This strategy has proven to be extremely successful in the case of Call of Duty, since players can rely on an annual release from the franchise, so Game Freak ought to look into it.

Pokemon Legends Z-A

The sequel to Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Pokemon Legends: Z-A takes Pokemon trainers back to the Kalos region's Lumiose City.

Franchise

Pokemon

Platform(s)

Switch

Released

2025-00-00

Developer(s)

Game Freak

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Genre(s)

RPG

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