Pokemon Gen IV Remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl Are Coming

The Pokemon Company announced Gen IV remakes Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl during the Pokemon 25th anniversary Pokemon Presents stream. Both games will release worldwide on Nintendo Switch in late 2021 and have outside developer ILCA at the helm, rather than Game Freak.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl re-create Gen IV’s Sinnoh region with enhanced lighting and visuals while remaining true to the original region layout. While rumors suggested these Gen IV remakes would be in the same vein as Pokemon Let’s GO, that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Pokemon don’t roam the landscape, and the capture system resembles the traditional Pokemon style of selecting and hurling a ball instead of using Let’s GO‘s timed button press system. Both games also use a more refined graphics style similar to the Link’s Awakening remake.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will include the entire Sinnoh Pokedex. Whether they’ll also include Pokemon from later entries, as Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire did and what changes they might make to the story are still uncertain. This comes alongside news of the upcoming open world RPG, Pokemon Legends: Arceus.