Pokémon Sword and Shield

Pokémon Sword (Japanese: ポケットモンスター ソード Pocket Monsters Sword) and Pokémon Shield (Japanese: ポケットモンスター シールド Pocket Monsters Shield) are the primary paired versions of Generation VIII. The games will be released on the Nintendo Switch.

During E3 2017, Tsunekazu Ishihara announced that the next core series titles would be available on the Nintendo Switch, but they were not prepared to release any more information at the time. On May 30, 2018, The Pokémon Company gave a press conference and announced that the new core games would be arriving the second half of 2019; they also said that they would have more traditional gameplay, as opposed to that found in Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!.

The games were formally announced on Pokémon Day, February 27, 2019 at 11 pm JST during a worldwide announcement through Nintendo Direct hosted by Tsunekazu Ishihara, Junichi Masuda, and Shigeru Ohmori. An official trailer was shown, giving information on the region and the starter Pokémon players can choose from. A global release date of late 2019 was also repeated, as revealed earlier. All copies of the game are playable in nine languages: Japanese, English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

Region
Pokémon Sword and Shield take place in the Galar region. This region has many diverse environments for the player to explore alongside the cities and towns dotted throughout the land; these include plains, forests, snowy mountains and caves. Connecting some of the larger cities appears to be some sort of train system in the map's north. Unlike Alola, these games will return to having Gyms that the player must battle with the goal of becoming the.

Features
The games ignore some of the changes introduced in Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, returning to the more traditional gameplay last seen in. Wild Pokémon are now encountered as random encounters (rather than being visible in the overworld like in Pokémon Let's Go) and the player can battle them (rather than only catch them).

Gyms will return to the games, after being replaced by trials in,.

Other returning Pokémon
Also featured in the games first trailer are, , , , , , , , , , , and.

In other languages
Pokémon Schwert und Schild Pokémon Espada y Pokémon Escudo Pokémon Épée et Bouclier Pokémon Spada e Scudo ポケットモンスター ソード・シールド 寶可夢 劍／盾