An open-world approach to Pokemon games is still on the cards says Masuda

According to long time series producer Junichi Masuda there's a chance Pokemon will shift to pen world in the future.

Eurogamer wrote:kay, thanks for answering that - even if I can't say it until everyone already knows! So last time we spoke, back at the Let's Go reveal in Japan, the topic of open-world Nintendo Switch games came up, like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, and you mentioned that there's a possibility that one day Pokémon might follow suit. I know that's purposefully vague, but is that still something that's being considered? Is that something that you see one day happening on the Switch?

Junichi Masuda: Well you know in general, I always want to be kind of facing new challenges and trying to you know, do new things with Pokémon. You know it's a different matter whether players will actually enjoy that kind of playstyle, but really you know, things like setting up an AI so that you know real world Pokémon appear, or different ways to appreciate the game, I'm always kind of thinking how to approach the Pokémon series from a different aspect so, in that sense, it's still on the cards.

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I feel like an open world game is off the cards until at least Gen 10 and if they ever wanted to make one they would need to bring in other developer like Monolith Soft.