Nintendo has a Pokemon Direct on the way, but there’s no way the gaming company is going to avoid controversy.
The plan is for Nintendo to hold this Pokemon Direct on Thursday . It will start at 9:30 am ET and last for about 20 minutes.
Twenty minutes is plenty of time for Nintendo to reveal new Pokemon content. The problem is that nothing they can say will avoid a deluge of backlash from fans.
One of the more likely rumors is that the Pokemon Direct will reveal remakes for Diamond and Pearl. That’s a possibility, but it won’t go over well if it’s true.
One of the biggest problems that fans have with Sword and Shield is the lack of a National Dex. That means that not all of the pocket monsters can be caught in the game.
The issue here is that these were the first games to remove the National Dex and only keep the much more limited Galar Region Dex. That means that Game Freak, the developers behind the franchise, can go one of two ways with a Generation 4 remake.
The first, and more devastating option, is that a remake of Diamond and Pearl will follow Pokemon Sword and Shield by not containing the National Dex. That would be a massive mistake because it would have the remakes featuring fewer monsters than the originals.
The next option would be to include all of the Pokemon available in the original versions of Diamond and Pearl, or what would be the National Dex for those games. If Game Freak and Nintendo go this route, it may not sit well with fans who were unhappy about the missing National Dex in Sword and Shield.
What may be even more controversial about the Pokemon Direct is release dates.
Imagine the controversy if these remakes come out in 2020? Fans will either complain that the games should have been in development longer to include more Pokemon or that Sword and Shield could have launched with more creatures.
Of course, this all assumes that the big announcements are Sinnoh remakes.
The worst-case scenario is that Nintendo spends 20 minutes talking about Pokemon Home, Pokemon Sleep, or more mobile games that no one cares about.
No matter what happens, Nintendo won’t come out of this Pokemon Direct a winner.