As with any mode of entertainment, the video game industry often revolves around trends. While there will always be core, unique games, there are genres that have risen and fallen in the past. Recent examples include the battle royale genre and time-loop games. PUBG kicked off the trend and style of modern battle royale games before it was eventually eclipsed by its predecessors: Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone.
The latter is surprisingly getting a sequel, but for the most part, these three have dominated the BR genre. Other battle royale games tried to join the trend before it essentially locked itself down—Ubisoft’s shut down of Hyper Scape proves that. Meanwhile, 2021 saw a plethora of time-loop games such as Deathloop, Lemnis Gate, Returnal, The Forgotten City, and more; most of which were well-received by fans. Then, of course, there’s the continued popularity of roguelike games, including Hades, Sifu, and even Far Cry 6’s DLC (as it embraces this trend).
This is all to say mention how genres become trends in games, and they can be quite popular ones too. So, Pokemon Legends: Arceus is hopefully a trend for an increasingly popular genre: Isekai.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Isekai Video Games
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Isekai video games have been released before, just like how battle royales served as a genre before, time loop games have existed before, and roguelike games have been around for a long time. But, it deserves its own major impact on the current industry like these others. Isekai is a genre of portal fantasy, where a character is transported to another world—possibilities including a completely different fantasy world, a virtual world, a parallel universe, or into the future or past. It’s very popular in anime and one of the best aspects of this in video games is how it reasonably explains players learning about the world at the same time as its protagonist.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a Pokemon game first, but it’s a Pokemon Isekai game too (similar to, if better than, the Mystery Dungeon games). And hopefully, this trend picks up throughout 2022 and maybe into 2023. It’s not the only Isekai game releasing this year, either. Forspoken is one of Square Enix’s games and sees Frey, a young New Yorker somehow end up in the fantasy world of Athia. Hopefully, more jump in on the trend, and it can hit the same success as BRs, time loops, and roguelikes.
Because it’s even been brought up in conversation recently, Microsoft’s canceled Scalebound would have been an Isekai game. Players would have taken on the role of Drew, a modern-day character, who gets transported into a world of dragons and bound to one. Scalebound had a ton of potential, Pokemon Legends: Arceus proves the potential of the genre, and Forspoken will hopefully deliver the same—that way, more Isekai games could be on the horizon and set for a big impact on the industry.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available on Nintendo Switch.
