The next mainline Pokémon games have been revealed, in the form of Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, as part of The Pokémon Company's annual Pokémon Day celebration, timed to commemorate the release of the first games in the series in Japan.
The games are taking a major step forward for the core franchise, based on the way Game Freak has been describing them as genuinely open-world in nature. This means they'll be seamless and let you move from town to wilderness without transitions.
That means the free-roaming gameplay introduced properly in recent release Pokémon Legends: Arceus might be a more concrete peek at the future of the franchise than we even dared to hope. Like in that game, you can see monsters moving around the overworld waiting to be fought or caught.
This might also mean there are no more random encounters, another big step for the franchise if it proves to be so. The game's starter Pokémon have also been revealed - Sprigatito, a grassy cat; Fuecoco, a firey crocodile; and Quaxly, a duckling.
They're cute as you could like, and we'll doubtless get glimpses of their evolved forms before the games come out in late 2022.