Nintendo appears to be preparing to release more details on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, as it launched a new website for you to register your interest in the game.
The page is pretty empty at the moment, but it does allow you to put your name on the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet mailing list, so you can get your hands on the latest game details as they arrive.
"Enter your email address below to register your interest in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet and receive emails about pre-orders and product news for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet," says Nintendo's official website.
It also reaffirms that the next installment in the Pokémon series will be an open-world adventure that will be released later this year.
What will Nintendo reveal?
Announced earlier this year following the release of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is still a bit of a mystery. The next main entry in the Pokémon video game series, it is billed as a "new evolutionary stage" that will introduce the ninth generation of pocket monsters.
Combining elements of the fluid open-world gameplay of Arceus with the creature-catching components more typical of previous Pokémon games, you'll be able to explore "freely in a richly expressed open world." This means that the transition between cities and nature can be made seamlessly. No longer will you have to wait to load each new area you find, exploration feels as seamless as you'd find in other sandbox games.
How that plays out remains to be seen, and we're betting this new take on the open-world game will be one of the first features Nintendo explores in future updates. Fans will be eager to find out how the cities fit in with the rest of the world and how big that world really is.
From what we've seen so far, the world seems pretty big. In the Scarlet and Violet trailer, we saw grasslands, wetlands, urban landscapes, deserts, and tropical beaches, so it seems like there are quite a few biomes to discover.
We've already taken a look at its three new starter Pokémon: Sprigatito, Quaxly, and Fuecoco, and their abilities, but we haven't yet seen any of the other new 'mons' that will be added in Generation Nine. Each generation typically adds around 100 new pocket monsters to catch, so we think Nintendo will be trickling them down to us for quite some time.
Of course, we're also waiting for Nintendo to confirm the release date for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. As of now, we only know that it will be released in late 2020, which will likely translate to sometime after August. The release date for Pokémon Legends: Arceus was announced five months before the game's release, so Nintendo can give us a long warning.