Pokemon Sword and Shield – Players’ Response to Free Camera Will Determine Its Inclusion in Future Instalments

Pokemon Sword and Shield are making some notable changes to the series, and the biggest one comes in the form of an open-world section called the Wild Area. And one of the Wild Area’s most interesting elements is that it gives the player full control over camera movement, rather than being shown through fixed camera angles the way Pokemon games always have been (Pokemon Sword and Shield still use fixed cameras outside of the Wild Area).

And Game Freak, it would seem, have implemented this free camera to test the waters, so to speak. Speaking recently in an interview over at the official Pokemon website, game director Shigeru Ohmori said that Game Freak are keeping an eye on the way players respond to the free camera in the Wild Area, and based on that, they might bring it back in future instalments.

“We always want to come up with new surprises for our players with each new Pokémon game,” Ohmori said. “This is our first time introducing free camera movement in the series, so we’re excited to see how our players will respond to it once they get their hands on the games. We’ll think about what we want to do in the future based on those reactions.”

As weird as it may sound for a game releasing in 2019, the free camera in the Wild Area is a huge deal. Honestly, it’s surprising it has taken the series so long to implement this, but also obviously understandable, given that it’s always been restricted to handheld devices until now. Hopefully, Game Freak will decide to bring the free camera back in future Pokemon games, and ideally implement it for the entire game, rather than just one section.

One that that definitely won’t be coming back (as per the developers) is the National Dex- read more on that through here.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are out exclusively for the Switch tomorrow, November 15.