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The rumored Wind and Waves can learn a lot from old favorites

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

Pokémon is approaching its 30th anniversary in 2026, and, if those massive Game Freak leaks are to be believed, its tenth generation will launch next year. Those leaks make many claims about the next games, allegedly titled Wind and Waves, like procedurally generated elements and survival mechanics. (As with any leak, though, believe it when you see it.)

Now that Pokémon Legends: Z-A is out in the wild, let’s ponder what Pokémon’s next generation should be. Many past Pokémon games have introduced new elements that don’t always make it into successive entries, like Legends: Arceus’s deep catching mechanics. To look ahead to Gen 10, let’s look at the elements of past Pokémon games that should be included in the series’s next pair of adventures.

An open world

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

Pokémon games going fully open-world has always felt like the natural final evolution for the mainline games. Despite the technical limitations, Scarlet and Violet’s open world was a strength. Encountering Pokémon out in the overworld felt most true to the original spirit of the anime and game series, and a step up from Arceus’s closed-off biomes.

The Nintendo Switch 2 update for Scarlet and Violet shows that Nintendo’s newest hardware is capable of smoothly running an open world — the experience is night and day compared to how those games ran on the original Switch. The onus will be on Game Freak to instead craft a world that feels alive and varied in locations for the rumored Wind and Waves.

Dense cities

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company/Nintendo

This open world shouldn’t just be wide swaths of nature and sparsely populated villages, like in Scarlet and Violet. Its urban areas should borrow from Z-A’s Lumiose City. While exploring only Lumiose City in Z-A can grow stale, more locations with the same variety of wild Pokémon in a dense urban environment would give a new Pokémon game plenty of personality. Pokémon games are full of iconic cities, and future cities should provide more exploration opportunities than just wandering into random NPCs’ houses, like in the early games.

Stadiums for battles

Image: Game Freak, The Pokémon Company/Nintendo

While Sword and Shield’s Dexit controversy is perhaps more memorable than the games themselves, they set a foundation for future installments, like how the Wild Zones were a natural precursor to encountering Pokémon in the overworld in Arceus. An element that I particularly enjoyed and want to see return are the stadiums for Pokémon battles.

As Sword and Shield took inspiration from England and its love of soccer (I know, it’s football, forgive me, I’m American), gym battles took place in massive stadiums. Cheering fans roared as Pokémon duked it out, and that exciting atmosphere of a live sporting event hasn’t been captured in games since. A few random folks might watch battles in Scarlet and Violet, but those battles never captured the spirit of a must-watch live event like in Sword and Shield. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind if the jerseys for those stadium battles returned.

New regional forms and Paradox Pokémon

Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Image sources: Game Freak/Nintendo via Polygon

The last few generations have introduced regional forms for Pokémon. These s aren’t just for aesthetics; they also add a type or completely change a Pokémon’s type, like Alola Vulpix turning the fire-type fox into an ice type. Generation 10 needs to keep this trend going — in some ways, regional forms make old Pokémon feel like brand-new critters.

Paradox Pokémon are similar to regional forms in that they change a Pokémon’s appearance and type. Introduced in Scarlet and Violet, they’re not tied to specific regions, but instead eras in time, like the ancient Roaring Moon and the futuristic Iron Valiant. As time shenanigans were central to Scarlet and Violet’s story, I don’t expect Paradox Pokémon to return anytime soon. But that won’t stop me from hoping.

More Eeveelutions

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Eevee has become a fan-favorite Pokémon and a mascot for the franchise. As the series progressed, its stable of evolutions has expanded since the original trio of Flareon, Jolteon, and Vaporean. However, it’s been three generations, and over a decade, since the last new Eeveelution debuted; Sylveon was introduced in Gen 6’s X and Y. Z-A, being a pseudo-sequel to those games, seemed primed for a new Eeveelution, but, alas, fans are still left with only eight Eeveelution options. There are still plenty of types Eevee could receive new Eeveelutions for, like dragon, steel, and flying.

Deep catching mechanics

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For so long, the slogan for Pokémon games was,”Gotta catch ‘em all!” For generations, catching ‘em mostly involved whittling down a wild Pokémon’s health, tossing a Poké Ball at them, and pressing the B button when the ball closed. (Okay, maybe that last part didn’t actually improve your odds at catching a Pokémon, but good luck convincing six-year-olds in the early ‘00s of that.)

With Pokémon populating the overworld of its biomes, Arceus brought new depth to tired catching mechanics. Now, your trainer could crouch in tall grass like a Hidden One assassin, lobbing Poké Balls from cover at unsuspecting creatures. Feather and Heavy Balls had different throw distances, and hitting a Pokémon from behind increased your chances at a successful catch. Throwing berries and other items to attract specific types of Pokémon lent Arceus’s catching mechanics a degree of depth that Z-A lacked. Gen 10 needs to return to what made adventuring in the Hisui region so fun.

Mega Evolutions

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Call it recency bias, but Mega Evolutions are just cool. (Well, except for Feraligatr’s.) First introduced in X and Y, Mega Evolutions are a battle mechanic that temporarily evolves certain Pokémon, making them stronger while also, in some cases, altering their types.

I found Sword and Shield’s Dynamax gimmick to be quite dull — they’re Pokémon, but big! Scarlet and Violet’s type-changing Terastallize mechanic added a new layer to Pokémon battles, and the shiny crystal-like Pokémon appearances were pretty. However, Mega Evolutions are simply more aesthetically pleasing — or so terrible you just can’t help but laugh at them — and they also introduce a type-change mechanic. It’s the best of both worlds.

Turn-based battles

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Z-A took a massive left turn for the franchise. Instead of turn-based battles, they’re fought in real-time; moves are used on a cooldown versus having a limited number of uses (PP). Real-time combat made for a fun change of pace, but resulted in chaotic clashes that lacked the strategizing of turn-based battles. I appreciate Z-A for trying something different, and mostly succeeding at it, but the spirit of battling in Pokémon games lies in their penchant for methodical, turn-based battles.