Pokemon Designers Detail How 'Pokemon: Let's Go' Will Tie Into 'Pokemon Go'

Game Freak director Junichi Masuda has provided some early details about how Pokemon: Let's Go will bring Pokemon over from Pokemon Go.

Last week, Nintendo announced a pair of new Pokemon games for the Nintendo Switch, titled Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu and Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee. The new games will have connectivity with Pokemon Go, although it won't be a true transfer of Pokemon like with Virtual Console games or the Pokemon Bank.

Masuda revealed to Eurogamer and other European news sites how the two games will connect. "We wanted to make it as simple as possible," Masuda said. "So on the Switch there's a connect button, you press the button on it, and then in Pokemon Go on your smartphone you press the connect button. So it's a very simple Bluetooth connection." Pokemon Go uses a similar Bluetooth connection to link the Pokemon Go Plus peripheral device.

Players also won't be able to automatically add all their Pokemon from Pokemon Go to Pokemon, Let's Go. "You can send Pokemon from Pokemon Go to Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee - and they don't go straight into your collection or your party, they enter into an area that's kind of like a Safari park type thing," Masuda explained. "You can see the Pokemon moving around in there, and you can actually go there and interact with them and catch them."

Masuda also noted that there were advantages to transferring more Pokemon from Pokemon Go to Pokemon: Let's Go even after you've filled your PokeDex. "There are also some incentives to move a lot of the same Pokemon from Go - the same species - and there are some sort of mini games you can play if you do that."

An additional benefit of linking the two games is the inclusion of a "special" Pokemon - the only confirmed new Pokemon that will appear in Pokemon: Let's Go. The Pokemon seems to be included as part of a feature in which players can give "presents" from Pokemon: Let's Go to Pokemon Go.

Pokemon: Let's Go seems heavily inspired by Pokemon Go. The new games do away with the traditional method of catching Pokemon for a catch screen inspired by Pokemon Go, complete with an identical targeting circle. The new games also use CP as a representation for the relative strength of a Pokemon and simplified several parts of the game after seeing how well Pokemon Go handled those aspects of gameplay for fans.

Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu and Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee will be released on November 16th.