Whenever a new game in a franchise is released, a vast majority of the previous game’s player base will make the jump to the newer title—leaving the older game to slowly lose population as time goes on.
This doesn’t usually matter at the start of a new game’s lifespan when it comes to online modes since companies will typically continue to support the older game’s servers and functionality for years after launch if they can. But that doesn’t mean new content will be released once development fully shifts to the next game.
The Pokémon Company is taking that second path soon, with an online notice, obtained via Serebii, being posted for Pokémon Sword and Shield noting that no additional content updates will be published for the 2019 titles after Nov. 1.
On Nov. 1, the final Wild Area News update will go live, adding in a selection of Pokémon that would normally not be found in the Wild Area and raids such as Gigantimax Snorlax. But once that update is live the online connectivity for the game will be relegated to simple functionality with no further changes—barring something like bug fixes that are needed in the future.
This means there will be no additional Wild Area Nes updates, the Battle Stadium will no longer be updated with new ranked seasons, and the results for those ranked seasons will not appear in Pokémon HOME. Players can still host their own competitions, but there will be no online events or competitions in Sword and Shield hosted or distributed by TPC and Game Freak once the Ultimate Finale ends on Oct. 30.
This will not impact basic online features for Sword and Shield like using the Y-Comm for online trading, battling, or simply connecting to the internet while in the Wild Area. This is simply TPC openly stating that the focus for “live-service” development has fully shifted to Scarlet and Violet ahead of the game’s Nov. 18 launch.
It might feel odd for announcements like this to drop so suddenly, but this is actually the Pokémon franchise’s first real need to keep players in the loop since Sword and Shield were the first games to truly implement a live-service model. Prior to this the only real news in this realm would involve TPC officially announcing which game would be the focus of the official VGC circuit or corroborating discontinuations for Nintendo’s online servers for past hardware when they impact a Pokémon title.
Either way, all this means is that players can still access everything Sword and Shield has to offer, but additional content like any rotating pieces of online features like ranked seasons and the Wild Area News won’t be getting updated in the future.
Published: Oct 14, 2022 02:00 am