(The following article does not contain spoilers for Pokémon Sword & Shield)
The news that Pokémon Sword & Shield wouldn’t be featuring a full and complete Pokédex was met with outrage from fans earlier this year, with lots of people deciding to skip out on the upcoming games entirely.
However, it seems the news is worse than we all first thought, as Game Freak has confirmed that future Pokémon games will also feature the reduced Pokédex.
In a recent interview with Inside Gamer, Game Freak producer Junichi Masuda, said that there’s currently no plans in the works to add missing Pokémon into Sword and Shield – or any future titles.
“We currently have no plans to make the Pokémon that are missing from the Galar Pokedex available in-game,” Masuda told the publication. “This is an approach that we want to continue with in future Pokémon games.”
In Pokémon’s defence, there’s now over 1000 canon Pokémon out there in the world and fitting them all into one game is understandably tough. Still, it’s pretty sad to see some of our all-time favourite pocket monsters missing from the roster.
The full Sword and Shield ‘dex has now leaked online, and it seems to show a huge number of axes. On Twitter, one user shared a photo of the leak, writing: “66% of the Pokédex has been axed and there’s a lot of fan faves that didn’t make the cut. Hope it was worth it Gamefreak.” (You can see the tweet here, obviously it contains spoilers!)
Not everyone is disappointed with the offerings for the upcoming games though. There are lots of people who are still incredibly excited for the titles, which are sure to be a huge money-maker for Nintendo.
Pokémon Sword and Shield release exclusively on Nintendo Switch, November 15.
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Featured Image Credit: Nintendo