Pokemon Sword and Shield has been a major hit with fans of the franchise and casual gamers. Easily breaking records in terms of sales. But the games also pushed the franchise forward in various ways that gamers are eager to see expanded upon.
However, there was also some key changes that players weren’t expecting at first. Such as how the games were going to have an Expansion Pass for the first time instead of a third game. The lack of a third title has happened before, but not substituted in their matter. The Isle Of Armor and The Crown Tundra were the results of this and fan reaction has been positive on one and divisive and the other. Further asking the question of why this happened.
In an interview with Game Informer, The Pokemon Company discussed their decision for DLC over a third title.
“There was an element of apprehension in moving to a downloadable model, but we were confident that players would enjoy exploring the new environments, uncovering new storylines, and meeting new human characters and Pokémon in both The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. With past titles, players generally had to collect and raise their Pokémon completely from scratch, so with a DLC we thought players would enjoy being able to use their favorite Pokémon right out of the gate.”
An interesting rationale, and with their releasing Pokemon Sword and Shield with the DLC in a new combined form, it’ll be curious to see the sales of it all and how the DLC will be viewed going forward.
