The Pokémon Company has announced remakes of DS games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, which are due for worldwide release on Nintendo Switch in “late 2021”.
While Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were officially revealed during aPokémonpresentation scheduled to coincide with the franchise’s 25th anniversary this weekend, their existence had been suggested in severalreports over the past few months.
Originally released in 2006, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were the first instalments in the fourth generation of the Pokémon video game series.
“These are faithful remakes of the Pokémon Diamond version and Pokémon Pearl version games which were released for theNintendo DSsystem in Japan 15 years ago,” Pokémon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya said duringa presentation on Friday.
As previously reported, the remakes are being developed byILCA, which also worked on Pokémon Home. The project is being directed byYuichi Uedaof ILCA andGame Freak’sJunichi Masuda, who was the director of the original DS releases.
Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl take place in the Sinnoh region and the three starter Pokémon available to players are Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup.
Game Freak is currently making another Pokémon title which was also revealed on Friday. Scheduled for release in 2022,Pokémon Legends: Arceusis an open-world game set during the early days of the Sinnoh region.
Several Pokémon games were released to coincide with the franchise’s 20th anniversary in 2016, including Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon for 3DS andPokémon GoforiOSandAndroid.
The Pokémon Companyalso released aNew Pokémon Snap traileron Friday, showing off photo editing and Illumina orbs ahead of the game’srelease on April 30.
