Whenever there’s a new Pokémon game on the horizon, fan expectations are always high, and that doubles when we talk about a sequel to a much-loved sub-series. For New Pokémon Snap, The Pokémon Company has entrusted Bandai Namco with the development tasks and it seems that the project is in safe hands.
Game director Haruki Suzaki also directed the 2016 Pokkén Tournament, a fighting game that featured Pokémon in a new and exciting way. In some background scenes, Pokémon could be seen living with humans and interacting with the world around them in a similar way to the film Detective Pikachu, and Suzaki has revealed to IGN that the work of his studio in Pokkén got them the new Pokémon Snap concert:
“The Pokkén tournament used the strengths of Bandai Namco Studio and made Pokémon attractive in a new way. So we had another chance to do something together again and that led to the development of New Pokémon. Snap We were able to talk to the developers [from the original game] and the project started with the involvement of a lot of people. “
It seems that the studio experience with showing Pokémon living this way has been helpful for New Pokémon Snap, where seeing monsters roaming around their natural habitats is an important part of the experience.
“The main goal was to build the world where wild Pokémon really live in this game. To do that, we first set out to create an exciting world by thinking about the environment where Pokémon live, creating scenarios in detail and also using Switch hardware capabilities to the fullest.While we were doing this, we tried to make Pokémon the star of the game by making them move naturally and with the sense of presence to make it fun to just watch them and take pictures even more fun. . “
In another recent interview, Suzaki explained how the team decided which Pokémon would make the cut for New Pokémon Snap. Consistently, in all of his comments, it seems that letting Pokémon really “live” in the game world has been the focus during development.