Author: Trafficblast

During today’s Pokemon Presents showcase, Nintendo revealed more details on its upcoming remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. While Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl don’t stray too far from the traditional pocket monster formula, they do have a few modern updates pulled from more recent games in the series like Pokemon Sword and Shield.

Customization appears to play a big part in the game, as Poke Balls can be tweaked to feature new effects whenever you summon Pokemon, and trainers can don fashionable gear during their journey.

Another touch of customization allows for a Pokemon to be let out of its Poke Ball and follow a player around as they explore Sinnoh’s various locations. One example of this was seen in the trailer when Riolu kept pace with a player by doing a Naruto-style ninja run.

A new Grand Underground area will allow players to explore a subterranean section of Sinnoh that’s home to numerous Pokemon and treasures, which bears a few similarities to Sword and Shield’s wild areas. Mining is also back, and uncovering certain items will allow for statues of Pokemon to be placed inside of secret bases. These aren’t just decorative statues either, as they’ll alter which Pokemon you encounter in the Grand Underground.

Most importantly though, contests are back in a big way in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. While previous Pokemon games focused on just how adorable your chosen Pokemon could be when paraded in front of judges, these newer events have a more interactive element that features dancing and unleashing a Pokemon’s best moves to wow the crowds.

Finally, the remakes will feature online battles like other games have in the past, perfect for when you want to see just how well your team does against someone else’s collection of Pokemon.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will launch for the Nintendo Switch on November 19. Before those games arrive, you can get your hands on a limited-edition Nintendo Switch Lite model that features the Diamond and Pearl mascots Dialga and Palkia etched onto the console. For more on the game and its other editions, you can check out our Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl preorder page.

This week’s Pokemon Presents showcase had plenty of information on other games in the franchise, such as Pokemon Go, Pokemon Cafe Remix, Pokemon Unite’s mobile release date, and Pokemon Legends Arceus, which looks to be a massive departure from the mainline games.

So far most of what we’ve known about Pokemon Legends: Arceus were scant details from a single event. As the January release date approaches, though, The Pokemon Company shared more details during its Pokemon Presents stream.

The trailer showed off a variety of environments including a beach, forest, and snowy mountains of the Hisui region–which ultimately later becomes the Sinnoh region. Exploration was a big focus of the footage, including using a Pokemon as transportation like a glider, boat, and mount. We also saw sneaking around the tall grass and a quick transition into combat. The trailer showed Pokemon turning aggressive with glowing red eyes as part of the story, making them especially dangerous. It seems as if once they’re turned aggressive this way they’ll attack you, the player, rather than just your Pokemon as in normal combat.

In a subsequent detailed talk about Arceus, the studio explained that the game revolves around the Galaxy Expedition Team. You meet up with Professor Laventon who studies Pokemon ecology, Captain Cyllene of the Survey Corps, and Commander Kamado from the expedition team. You’ll go out on the expedition and make a base camp, and prepare for outings by buying or crafting items.

Out in the world you’ll manually throw Poke Balls at wild Pokemon to capture them. Some Pokemon will react differently to your presence, including some that just immediately run away, so you’ll need to hide in tall grass to sneak up on them. You can initiate a battle by throwing a Poke Ball containing one of your own Pokemon near a wild Pokemon. An action chart to the right side details the battle order, and some faster Pokemon may be able to act multiple times before their opponent can once. Your Pokemon will be able to choose from strong style for extra power but slower speed, or agile style for faster attacks with less power.

The presentation also showed off new Pokemon like the stag Wyrdeer, the water-faring Basculegion, and Hisui variants of Braviary and Growlithe.

Preorders for Pokemon Legends: Arceus open on the Nintendo eShop starting today.

Previously the company had announced that Arceus was set in the Sinnoh region, but it takes place long before modern Pokemon training even exists. It’s also said to represent a “new approach” for Pokemon with a more action-RPG focus. The earliest trailers drew comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild due to its visual style and wide-open areas.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is coming on January 28, 2022. For more, check out everything we know about Pokemon Legends: Arceus, along with our Pokemon Legends: Arceus preorder guide.

Pokemon Unite, the MOBA-style free-to-play Pokemon game, will launch for mobile devices next month through iOS and Google Play. As part of the Pokemon Presents broadcast, The Pokemon Company announced that Unite will be released for iOS and Android devices on September 22.

Preregistration begins today, August 18, for both platforms, and you can earn in-game rewards for doing so. The company also confirmed that cross-play is supported. You can preregister for Unite on mobile through these links: iOS, Google Play.

The Pokemon Company also announced the next two Pokemon that will come to Unite, presumably on both mobile and in the previously released Nintendo Switch edition. These Pokemon are Mamoswine and Sylveon.

Following Unite’s launch on Switch, some players criticized how the game lets you purchase more powerful held items with real money, which many argue can be described as pay-to-win.

In other news, the Pokemon Presents broadcast on Wednesday included updates on Pokemon: Legends Arceus and the Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl games. One of the big reveals was that of a new Switch Lite launching in November themed around Diamond and Pearl.

Pokemon fans have a new special-edition Nintendo Switch console to pick up this fall. To celebrate the upcoming release of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Nintendo is releasing a limited-edition Dialga and Palkia Nintendo Switch Lite. The Nintendo Switch Lite Dialga and Palkia Edition releases November 5, two weeks before Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl arrive on November 19. It’s not available to preorder just yet, but we will update this article with links to major retailers as soon as listings go live.

The Nintendo Switch Lite Dialga and Palkia Edition doesn’t come with either of the upcoming games, but it’s also being sold at the standard Nintendo Switch Lite list price of $200. If the new console looks familiar, that’s because it uses the design of the special-edition Nintendo DS Lite that was released alongside Diamond and Pearl. The console is gray and black with images of Dialga and Palkia, the two cover Pokemon, on the back.

This is the second Pokemon-themed Switch Lite. In 2019, Nintendo released a Zacian and Zamazenta Edition alongside Sword and Shield. While that console was available to purchase post-launch (at times), we haven’t seen it for list price in quite a while. If you want the Dialga and Palkia Edition, it would be smart to get it as soon as possible.

Of course, this Switch Lite isn’t the only new Nintendo model releasing this fall. The Nintendo Switch OLED arrives on October 8, and preorders keep going in and out of stock. If you haven’t ordered the Gen 4 remakes yet, check out our Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl preorder guide.

The third episode of Techland’s ongoing Dying Light 2 web series will air on August 26 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET, on the Gamescom Studio channel. Hosted by lead game designer Tymon Smektała, Dying 2 Know will focus on Dying Light 2’s parkour and combat, two essential gameplay elements that helped players survive the events of the original game.

Techland added that Dying Light 2’s parkour now has a more advanced, and realistic movement system, and can be used to mix complex moves into combat. Handy stuff for the game’s protagonist Aiden when he evades the infected hordes, the more savage viral predators that emerge at night, or other human survivors scavenging for supplies.

As for combat, there’ll be a deep dive into the arsenal of deadly tools that can be collected and used, the inspiration behind some of the game’s weapons, and a closer examination of the factions in Dying Light 2. On the community side, Techland will also speak about its upcoming UGC cosplay contest and the Techland Gamers and Goodies community hub that will be activated in both Dying Light games.

Previous Dying Light 2 streams have been full of plenty of information on the game, such as its story, characters, and the various monsters that have helped make post-apocalyptic parkour a necessary skill for survivors.

The previous episode of Dying 2 Know shed more light on the Sleeping Beauties, Volatiles, and Banshees, as well as the new Revenants whose biological wing-like mutations suggest that not even high ground may be safe from this new breed of infected human.

Dying Light 2: Stay Human is set to release on December 7 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Solitaire is coming to Xbox Game Pass–more specifically, subscribers will be able to get their hands on the premium, ad-free edition of the Microsoft Solitaire Collection for free. The announcement on Twitter was accompanied by an impressively epic gif, complete with explosions, hype, and strobing rainbow text in the world’s favorite font, Comic Sans.

The only thing the gif is really missing is the iconic card-bouncing winning celebration, though perhaps Microsoft wants you to earn that visual yourself.

The gif advertises the Solitaire Collection as the “most played video game in history,” though that achievement is helped quite a bit by the game being packaged by default on all Windows-running machines. In fact, not everyone is stoked about the Game Pass announcement, considering many solitaire players both hardcore and casual remember a day when the game was free (and ad-free) on all Windows PCs.

The premium version of Microsoft Solitaire Collection caused some controversy when it was introduced with Windows 10 in 2015, due to the addition of intrusive, full-window ads to the free version of the game. Now, Game Pass subscribers can bypass the ads and unlock the extra premium features as part of their existing subscriptions, but many players still clearly believe that Solitaire should have stayed free and ad-free for all users.