Month: February 2019

In a Nintendo Direct earlier this morning, Nintendo announced two new Pokemon games, which are titled Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. The two games will arrive on Switch in late 2019, marking the first main series Pokemon games to arrive on the console. The Direct also gave us a brief look at the games’ gorgeous new region, Galar, and the three new starter Pokemon: Grookey, a grass monkey; Scorbunny, a fiery rabbit; and Sobble, a shy water lizard.

More information, including the exact release date, will be revealed in the coming months, but if you’re already mentally throwing your money at Nintendo and counting down the days, pre-orders for the game are slowly opening up. Best Buy, Amazon, and GameStop already have listings for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield live on their sites, so you can pre-order the games right now. We’ll update this post as more retailers begin offering pre-orders.

Where to pre-order Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield

Pokemon Sword

Pokemon Shield

Pre-order bonuses for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield

As of right now, the only pre-order bonus available is at Best Buy, where you can receive $10 reward credit for pre-ordering one of the Pokemon games. However, to be eligible, you must be a Best Buy member. Signing up for their membership program is free.

You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Sorry, but you can’t access this content!

As part of a special Nintendo Direct to celebrate Pokemon Day, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have finally pulled back the curtain on Pokemon Sword and Shield, the series’ upcoming eighth generation titles for Nintendo Switch. On top of revealing details about the games’ setting, we got our first look at their brand-new set of starter Pokemon, which represent the first Gen 8 Pokemon.

As in previous Pokemon games, players will be presented with a choice of three different Pokemon when they first begin their adventure in Sword and Shield. This time around, the options will be the Grass-type chimp Grookey, the Fire-type rabbit Scorbunny, and the Water-type lizard Sobble. You can see all three of them below.

No other new Pokemon have been revealed yet, but we did get a glimpse at a ton of returning Pokemon, including a handful from Sun and Moon–you can see all the Sword and Shield Pokemon in our gallery. Sword and Shield are set in the new Galar region, which appears to be based on Britain and spans idyllic countryside, rustic towns, and frigid mountains.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are being directed by Shigeru Ohmori, who also served as director of Sun and Moon. Based on the footage revealed thus far, Sword and Shield appear to be much more traditional takes on the series than the recent Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee; random encounters seem to be back, and players will once again be able to battle wild Pokemon before capturing them. It’s also been confirmed that Gyms are returning after they were dropped from Sun and Moon. We also spotted some mysterious symbols, though it’s unclear what significance they have, if any.

Pokemon Sword and Shield release exclusively for Nintendo Switch in late 2019. That doesn’t appear to be all that awaits Pokemon fans this year, however. Toward the end of the presentation, The Pokemon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara teased that the company has “plenty in the works for the Pokemon brand that we hope will delight you.”

Nintendo debuted the new Pokemon RPGs coming to Nintendo Switch this year during its special Pokemon Nintendo Direct. In the process, it revealed a lot about its new setting. Pokemon Sword and Shield are set in the Galar region, and the gameplay video gives some sense of the real-life setting that inspired it.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, Galar looks to be very heavily inspired by the UK. It’s full of cottages and Victorian architecture, and an overview even showed a tall clock tower that appears similar to the famous Big Ben tower in London, England. The setting also appears to offer a variety of weather types, including winter weather that requires a change of clothes. You might also notice some mysterious symbols scattered throughout; we’re not sure if they have any significance at this point, but they could prove to be significant.

The names “Sword” and “Shield” also invoke imagery of Medieval knights, often associated with English history. In a tweet from 2018 that may have slyly teased the game, Game Freak specifically tagged Nintendo of Europe. At one point in the trailer the player character dons a soccer-like uniform and enters a huge stadium, which contributes to the European feel.

This wouldn’t be the first time Pokemon has been set in a region inspired by Europe. While many of the earlier Pokemon RPGs have been set in areas based on Japanese settings, the Kalos region of Pokemon X and Y was based on Paris and the surrounding French countryside. Other notable non-Japanese regions have included Unova from Black and White (based on New York City) and Alola from Sun and Moon (based on Hawaii).

The debut also laid out the three new Gen 8 starters, and they’re just adorable. We’ve also rounded up all the Pokemon in Sword and Shield we’ve seen so far.

During a special Nintendo Direct for Pokemon Day, Nintendo has finally revealed its upcoming Pokemon games for Nintendo Switch, which seem to represent Generation 8. Named Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, the games will be released in “late 2019.” You can see the game in action in the trailer below.

The games are set in a new region named Galar, which looks to be similar in appearance to Britain. The three starter creatures were shown off in Nintendo’s Pokemon Direct presentation; they are a grass monkey named Grookey, a fire bunny named Scorbunny, and a sad water lizard, Sobble. Gameplay was shown in the Direct but was not detailed extensively, though it seems like this will bring back random encounters, among other things.

Sword and Shield are directed by Shigeru Ohmori, who previously directed Sun and Moon and has worked on the series since 2002’s Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. Following Sword and Shield’s trailer, which you can watch below, The Pokemon Company teased it was working on more in the Pokemon franchise besides these new titles. No more details were confirmed.

The Pokemon Company first announced it was working on new Pokemon games at E3 2017. Since then, the publisher said little else about the upcoming titles–only that they are “core RPG Pokemon titles” and that they would launch in the latter half of 2019.

The “core RPG” description is in contrast to the most recent Pokemon games, Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee, which were released for Nintendo Switch in November 2018 as remakes of sorts of Pokemon Yellow. They incorporated some elements of the mobile phenomenon Pokemon Go in an attempt to ease newer players into the mainline series.

February 27 is Pokemon Day, The Pokemon Company’s yearly celebration of its huge pocket monster franchise. Pokemon Go is holding a special event, with generation one creatures spawning more frequently along with shiny versions of Pidgey and Rattata.

NetherRealm Studios has added another familiar face to Mortal Kombat 11‘s roster of fighters: Johnny Cage. The movie star turned kombatant has been a mainstay since the very fist entry in the fighting game franchise and, over time, has changed his look in various ways. In Mortal Kombat 11 he’s a little older and greyer, but still embodies the classic self-involved Hollywood actor stereotype.

You can see Cage in action over on IGN ahead of a full reveal later today. Cage looks to have retained the majority of his iconic moves, like the flip kick, fireball, rising punch, and shadow kick. However, he’s also got some new tricks, such as using a camera’s flash to momentarily stun his enemy, and calling another Johnny Cage–presumably a stunt double–to hold his opponent down while he pummels them. His Fatality is pretty funny, but we’ll let you see that for yourself.

NetherRealm Studios is set to host a Kombat Kast stream today at 1 PM PT / 10 AM ET / 9 PM GMT / 8 AM AEDT (February 28). During these streams members of the development team usually breakdown aspects of the game such as new characters in a great deal of depth. We expect Johnny Cage will be the subject of the latest Kombat Kast, so make sure to watch the stream here on GameSpot.

A Mortal Kombat 11 beta is planned for March 28 for those who pre-order, and the game will be officially released for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch on April 23. Check out our pre-order guide for all of the various versions of the game, including the $300 edition that includes a wearable Scorpion mask.