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Though Game Freak hasn’t revealed any specific window for how long it will likely take to complete the campaign in Pokemon Sword / Shield, it looks like the upcoming game will have about as much content as previous titles in the franchise. Of course, since different generations have taken wildly different times to complete, that’s still a fairly large ballpark.
“In terms of the volume or the amount of content in the main adventure, [Sword / Shield is] comparable to other Pokemon generations that we’ve played,” Pokemon Sword / Shield director Shigeru Ohmori said, according to Game Informer. “I think there’s a lot of interesting activities that, for example, completing the Pokedex or really going out into the Wild Area and engaging with those mechanics, that’ll add a lot of replay value for players who are looking to get really hardcore into that.”
“I feel like a lot of players these days will typically burn through content and try to go to the ending as fast as they can,” Pokemon Sword / Shield producer Junichi Masuda added. When looking at previous Pokemon games, their campaign’s run the gamut of 26-41 hours of content, with Gen I as the low outlier and Gen IV as the high one. Comparatively, the stories in Gen II, III, V, VI, and VII are all in the 30-35 hour range–so it’s probable that’s where Gen VIII will ultimately end up as well.
One of the biggest new features in Pokemon Sword / Shield is the Wild Area, an open-world expanse where Pokemon roam about in the overworld–just like they do in Let’s Go, Pikachu / Let’s Go, Eevee. This area doesn’t work like the routes seen in previous Pokemon games. In the Wild Area, Pokemon don’t naturally scale to your adventure, so when you’re just starting out, you may run into wild Pokemon that are far too strong for you to take on, forcing you to be sneaky. You can also interact with other players while in the Wild Area, allowing you to easily find other trainers to battle against or trade with.
Pokemon Sword / Shield is scheduled to release for Nintendo Switch on November 15.
