Few months ago Game Freak announced Town (working title), a JRPG completely unrelated to Pokémon
To give you some context, despite Pokémon is one of the biggest franchise in video game history, Game Freak is a very small studio with around 100-150 employees (almost indie-ish), and that is one of the reasons why they've never made a Pokémon that is this big AAA project, they couldn't handle it, and they are a bit reluctant on expanding the team (they're hiring people but they want to stay relatively small).
It's definitely not the first time we see Game Freak making a game that isn't Pokémon but i believe this is the first relatively big one, with 3D visuals and possibly GF's first JRPG outside Pokémon. (unsure about that, you may consider some of the smaller games like Quest as RPGs)
Granted i believe this is likely a tech demo for the next Pokémon game, so it probably won't be a big game, but what if it is? What if in its own right, Town is an excellent RPG and it also sells well?
Should Game Freak start to focus on two franchises as a way to inspire developers making something that isn't Pokèmon? Should they give up on Pokémon (given the pressure they felt on making a bigger scale iteration) to focus on this? or should Town just be another of their side-projects with no sequels?
Personally looking at some of their non-Pokémon related artwork, i think it's cool to see them working on different projects and if it is a success, even as a small scale project, i'd consider turning Town into a separate franchise.
PS: It's also worth noting that apparently GF is also going to re-release Giga Wrecker on Switch with the name "Giga Wrecker Alt." (maybe with new contents added)
To give you some context, despite Pokémon is one of the biggest franchise in video game history, Game Freak is a very small studio with around 100-150 employees (almost indie-ish), and that is one of the reasons why they've never made a Pokémon that is this big AAA project, they couldn't handle it, and they are a bit reluctant on expanding the team (they're hiring people but they want to stay relatively small).
It's definitely not the first time we see Game Freak making a game that isn't Pokémon but i believe this is the first relatively big one, with 3D visuals and possibly GF's first JRPG outside Pokémon. (unsure about that, you may consider some of the smaller games like Quest as RPGs)
Granted i believe this is likely a tech demo for the next Pokémon game, so it probably won't be a big game, but what if it is? What if in its own right, Town is an excellent RPG and it also sells well?
Should Game Freak start to focus on two franchises as a way to inspire developers making something that isn't Pokèmon? Should they give up on Pokémon (given the pressure they felt on making a bigger scale iteration) to focus on this? or should Town just be another of their side-projects with no sequels?
Personally looking at some of their non-Pokémon related artwork, i think it's cool to see them working on different projects and if it is a success, even as a small scale project, i'd consider turning Town into a separate franchise.
PS: It's also worth noting that apparently GF is also going to re-release Giga Wrecker on Switch with the name "Giga Wrecker Alt." (maybe with new contents added)
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