Pokemon Sword & Shield Facts One Developer Tried to Hide

DidYouKnowGaming takes a look at some facts from the development of Pokemon Sword & Sheild for the Nintendo Switch, including a few details the game's developers would later try to hide.

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Special Thanks to Jacob Newcomb, Snorlax Monster and Eurasia_M

Research/Writing by Dr Lava
Video Editing by TheCartoonGamer
Narration by Truegreen7 @truegreen7

Sources/Further Reading:

#Pokemon #Nintendo #GameFreak

[DidYouKnowGamin]

Clarification: There's some debate in the comments whether or not Project Tezu (seen at timestamp 9:55) was technically part of the Gear Project. According to Junichi Masuda, Gear Project games require 3 GF devs to support a project in order to be pitched to GF's higher-ups. Project Tezu had 3 GF devs supporting it: James Turner (SwSh's art director), Go Ichinose (SwSh composer), and Hironobu Yoshida (SwSh Pokémon designer). James mentioned the Gear Project in his now-deleted Twitter thread about Project Tezu, but after this video went up, it was pointed out to us that he said elsewhere that Project Tezu was "just for fun." Whether Project Tezu was technically part of the Gear Project, or a project 3 GF devs made just for fun -- as far as time spent working on it, it's essentially the same as a Gear Project pitch that didn't go any further than the 28 second animation seen in this video (according to what's been stated publicly). In hindsight we wish we'd tweaked the wording used at 9:55. Unfortunately, we can't make those kind of tweaks in a video, like we could in a written article. Apologies.

[M_Alexander]

A bummer about both Galar and Paldea (actually Alola too I think) is that the area around your house looks _so nice_ with lots of littie homey details and then nowhere else in the game has the same level of care

[jjsponge]

Fan: "I can't wait to see Bayleef in Sword and Shield!"

Devs: "...should we tell her?"

[SmileySadFaceHD]

Damn every time we hear more about the development cycle of pokemon games it gets more and more depressing.

[Dakress]

The stuff about Dexit is fascinating from a Japanese perspective, as reportedly the Pokemon devs never really announced the pokemon cuts would be happening in that region, meaning the whole situation there was more or less just one big "surprise" kept under wraps on purpose.

[possumlodge]

The idea of pokecenters being more of a hub for trainers to stop and rest along the way (without being reduced to just a healing mechanic) is so much better. Shame that never made it through.

[Patterrz]

Pokémon centres should have stuck to the original idea of being Pubs, that would have been hilarious

[JJLarge]

Sword and shield development secrets feel like a conspiracy from the devs and game freak sometimes

[LewtwoYT]

9:53 -- This is an error. Project TEZU was an animation, not a game for GEAR Project (you can even see "JAMATION" at the bottom which he uses exclusively for animation projects) and on James' personal channel, the video is still up, where he states this in the comments.

[flarestorm]

1:03
Ishihara: "no one would carry around a game console in the age of the smartphone."
Masuda: "we would've preferred developing the game for a new DS model."

These are different people of course, but I find it odd that they just contradict each other like that. The 3DS was basically the last successful handheld gaming console. It's only competition was the PS Vita, which didn't perform super-well. How long did they think the DS train would last, and what did they expect their next main series game to be on?

[MowseChao]

It's weird how Nintendo and TPC have an almost adversarial relationship with this channel. I get it that there are corporate secrets, but they seem to almost aggressively try to keep everything under wraps, even long after things are cancelled.

[jarkiplier]

I really wish we lived in a timeline where these games were better. The region, character and pokemon designs are all so cool and the concept for a lot of stuff like the stadiums and gym challenge was awesome, it's just a shame that it couldn't live up to the potential. Evolutions and Twilight Wings sold me on this opinion. Cause the Galar portrayed in those is amazing. That's the Galar I think about.

[Fuhiro]

To me, the Pokemon Company & GameFreaks initial gripes withthe Switch seem pretty thinly veiled to be a distaste towards moving to an HD, home console-esque system. You can tell from any of the releases on Switch that the devs just weren't/aren't ready for such a big leap. Why else would they request Nintendo make a console so similar to the platform they were already familiar with instead?

[M_Alexander]

The funny thing about Dexit is that the "National Dex" only really works for the first four Gens; starting with Gen 5 it's more like the _International_ Dex

[StoicForce]

Sheesh... Responding to that Bayleef fan's tweet and then not putting it in the game is like self-immolation. Just don't acknowledge these sorts of tweets if you aren't going to deliver, then you won't shoot yourselves in the foot. It still baffles me how disconnected and socially inept higher-ups can be.

[mrfoxly]

It’s really painful, looking at Pokémon games on the Switch.

In both Gen 8 and Gen 9 you can see the traces of a good game behind the BS.

You can tell the devs are literally trying with what they’re got, but it just isn’t enough.

And yes, I absolutely blame the idiot executives up top for messing things up.

[WeathermanEva]

I feel bad for the developers. You can see how much passion they had, but the brutal release schedule has been ruining Pokemon games for the past decade or so

[SkorpTS]

I refuse to believe that they actually thought Sword & Shield were going to be the best games in the series. No person could possibly be that out of touch.

[slim_streams]

"Masuda felt really bad after people rightfully called him out for callously interacting with a fan like that. He then felt better once he saw how much money he made"

[Lyceaos]

actually theres a LOT to argue a xenomorph would be a bug type if you look at the design, the behavior, the hive mentality and swarming, dark and bug or bug and dragon would be VERY apt for a xenmorph