Pokemon Champions dev talks future plans, could be around “forever”

Pokemon Champions finally had its release date revealed yesterday, launching on April 8 for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, with a strong promise to further expand the franchise’s competitive scene. According to the game’s producer, Masaaki Hoshino, the expectation is for the title to last for many years.

In an interview published by Games Radar, Hoshino shared that he hopes the game will last for a very long time, ideally forever, with continuous support from the team over the years.

“We’re planning to keep Pokemon Champions going far into the future- basically forever, as long as the Pokemon series is continuing,” Hoshino explains. “And who knows? Far in the future, we’ll have 2,000, 3,000, maybe 10,000 Pokemon.”

Another interesting point from the interview came when Hoshino was asked whether the long-term goal is to have every Pokemon available in the game. The team doesn’t have “any specific concrete plans” to share at this time. However, he added: “But of course, we want to include as many Pokemon as possible in the game. That’s our goal.” Note that the game will not have every Pokemon available at launch.

Acknowledging that the team wants to make Champions “a game that can be easily enjoyed by a wide audience” Hoshino explained that “our current plan is to have these different blocks,” also known as Regulation Sets, which The Pokemon Company already uses to define which Pokemon can be used across different seasons in the Video Game Championships (VGC) competitive scene.

“Our plan right now is to have that kind of change over time, so the meta game or the Pokemon that are available at any given time to be used may be different as time goes on,” he added.

Pokemon Champions has not only received its official release date, but also new details about the game. If you missed it, you can check out more information here.