‘Pokemon Sword And Shield’ Producer Junichi Masuda Admits The Series Has No Definite Timeline

Pokemon Sword and Shield releases in less than a month and invites players to the new Galar region soon. The location brings Pokemon new and old to the forefront and marks the beginning of the eighth generation of Pokemon games. Some fans might be wondering where exactly do these games fit in the Pokemon timeline, considering the series has one in the first place.

It’s never been properly clarified how much overlap there is between the various games in the series. With Gold/Silver being a direct sequel to Red/Blue, you would think that time wise the series just continues in chronological order. However there’s some interactions with many characters from different games that cause issues with that theory.

In an interview with GameInformer, series producer Junichi Masuda admitted that there’s no definite timeline for the Pokemon series, and that it’s best not to get too caught up trying to untangle it.

“It starts to get a little complicated if you pay too much attention to timelines,” he said. “Like, there might be a professor that appears and it wouldn’t make sense at all if we applied that kind of timeline logic. So we try not to apply it too rigorously.”

Masuda says the world of Pokemon has grown so large that it’s hard for the series to land on a strict linear narrative.

“The approach that Pokemon takes is expanding the world, like what the regions are, and making it richer as we go. Rather than a timeline, it’s more of a physical space thing.”

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In that same interview, Masuda and director Shigeru Ohmori spoke about the game being of comparable length of other games in the series. They said the games are just about the same length as other titles story wise, with more features than other games to increase the overall playtime.

Pokemon Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch on Nov 15.