During February 2026’s Pokemon Presents, Nintendo revealed the 10th generation of mainline games: Pokemon Winds and Waves. It’s Pokemon’s 30th anniversary this year, which makes it the perfect time release a pair of new games. But surprisingly, Wind and Waves are coming in 2027, missing the anniversary year.
That’s a good thing.
In 2022, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet suffered a litany of performance issues on Nintendo Switch. The texture pop-ins were horrible, while the graphics and environments looked dull and ugly. Despite those issues, the 9th generation was my favorite one since Black and White. I loved how the games embraced the open world in a way that felt natural and exciting. Thankfully, the games play well on Switch 2, but it was too little, too late.
Winds and Waves already looks markedly better than previous Pokemon games, including last year’s Pokemon Legends: Z-A. Buildings don’t look like flat PDF files. And the water textures look like a huge step up from Scarlet and Violet’s too.
It seems like Nintendo and Game Freak have learned the correct lessons for Winds and Waves, and isn’t pushing this new generation out the gate to meet some arbitrary 30th anniversary. The more time these games spend cooking in the kitchen, the better. Plus, they’re ditching the first Switch, whereas Legends: Z-A was released on it as well as Switch 2. This time, there’s no outdated hardware to hold them back.
Game Freak is also working on Beast of Reincarnation, which is due out on August 4 this year for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. I’m sure that it’s taking up valuable resources over at Game Freak, and that it may have had an impact on the release timing of Pokemon Winds and Waves.
Either way, all the signs seem good, and I’m excited to see what Pokemon Winds and Waves has to offer. The archipelago setting filled with a gorgeous and a vast ocean feels like a natural evolution of the open-world concept set by Scarlet and Violet.
As for the starters, you’ve got the grass bird Browt, the fire dog Pombon, and the water gecko Gecqua. Browt and Gecqua feels like retreads, especially since we’ve already got similar starters in the form of Rowlet and Sobble, so I’ll likely pick Pombon as my starting partner. Also, please don’t go bipedal on us.
