Five years ago, Pokemon Sword, Shield's Wild Area Plans for open worlds began

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Even if Pokémon series has seen many ups and downs on the Nintendo Switch, it's hard to deny the impact of Gen 8's Pokemon Sword and Shield had on the franchise. Gen 8 got off to a controversial start with the infamous “Dexit” scandal skewing much of the discussion around Pokemon Sword and Shields launch back in 2019. But five years later, the dust has settled around those titles, and with the series' current direction favoring an open-world experience, it's clear to see that Gen 8 laid the foundation for this formula's success.




One of the most memorable aspects of Pokemon Sword and Shield is the wild area, a concept new to the franchise at the time of release that allowed players to roam freely in a completely open section of the game's world. While Sword and shield were still largely linear games at their core, Wild Area gave players a taste of freedom and quickly became a prominent part of the experience. Gimmicks like Dynamax and Gigantamax didn't really stick with players, and neither did the game's numbers, so the legacy of Pokemon Sword and Shield remains in the franchise's open-world ambitions that were introduced with Wild Area.

Promotional art for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, alluding to the legacy of the game on Nintendo Switch

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Pokemon Sword and Shield's Wild Area gave players a taste of Open World gaming


Despite its flaws, the wild area was a breath of fresh air in Pokemon Sword and Shield

Mainline Pokémon Games up until Gen 8 had always followed a standard, linear design where players would travel from town to town along pre-defined routes with strategically placed trainers to meet and fight. Pokemon Sword and Shield still has the same design but mixes things up by adding the Wild Area, which connects the Galar Region cities of Motostoke and Hammerlocke. Instead of confining players to limited travel routes, Wild Area creates a huge space for players to roam, explore different biomes and find wildlife both in and out of tall grass.

The Wild Area served as the perfect distraction for players tired of following the main story of the game as it allowed them to create their own adventures and explore every nook and cranny the area had to offer. By becoming available as early as before the first gym, it was easy for players to get lost in the wild and end up in a moon far above their current level. While this is a common way to guide players along a certain path in open-world RPGs, Pokemon Sword and Shield's Wild Area used high-level animals to entice players to revisit the location after leveling up their team.


Pokemon Sword and Shield
s Wild Area locations were expanded with the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra DLCs to include new DLC-specific zones where new creatures can be found.

Pokémon's current Open-World format can trace its roots back to Sword and Shield

Follows the wild area into Sword and shieldGame Freak built on the series' version of an open world map with the contributions that followed. Although still not a true open world, Pokemon Legends: Arceus' open zone map design was a step up from Wild Area as it featured multiple freely explored areas with minimal linear direction. The game's introduction of Alpha Pokémon also reflects the high-level wild mons that would roam wild areas and act as roadblocks to the player's progress.


It wasn't until Gen 9's Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that the series would see its first true open world, but the foundation laid by Wild Area is still evident in the design of Paldea's map. Although players have the freedom to travel in any direction after the game's prologue, there are still guide rails in the form of critter and trainer levels to prevent players from diving into an area they are not prepared for. The lack of level scaling Scarlet and Violets open world may be less than ideal, but it shows that there is still room for Pokémon series to grow and develop its open world formula first tested by Pokemon Sword and Shield.

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