Pokemon Diamond And Pearl Remakes Announced For Switch

The Pokemon Company announced it is releasing remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl for Nintendo Switch later this year. As revealed during the February 2021 Pokemon Presents stream, the remakes are titled Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and they look to be more faithful to the original DS games than previous Pokemon remakes were, sticking very closely to the originals' visual style and gameplay.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are being developed not by Game Freak, which has traditionally handled remakes in the past, but by Ilca, which also worked on Pokemon Home. Ilca's Yuichi Ueda and Game Freak's Junichi Masuda--who directed the original Diamond and Pearl versions--will serve as the remakes' directors.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl retain the original titles' art style, featuring squat characters and buildings in the overworld reminiscent of the original DS games, but with more realistically proportioned characters during battle sequences. According to the presentation, "the sense of scale of the original games' towns and routes has been carefully preserved" in these remakes.

Diamond and Pearl are set in the Sinnoh region, where players begin their Pokemon adventure by choosing either Turtwig, Chimchar, or Piplup. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are slated to launch worldwide simultaneously in late 2021. The titles are already up for preorder at various retailers.

Those weren't the only new Pokemon games announced during the Pokemon Presents broadcast. The Pokemon Company also revealed a brand-new title called Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which likewise takes place in the Sinnoh region, albeit in ancient times. Pokemon Legends is more visually reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, featuring wide-open environments and no transitions to separate battle scenes.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus is slated to launch in 2022. Beyond that, The Pokemon Company also shared a new gameplay trailer for New Pokemon Snap during February's broadcast. For more news, be sure to check out our roundup of the biggest Pokemon Presents announcements.