Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Will Be Nintendo 3DS’s Last Pokemon Games

An era is coming to an end for the Pokemon franchise.

In a recent interview with IGN, Game Freak director Shigeru Ohmori said that Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon would be the “culmination” of the company’s work on the Nintendo 3DS, meaning that they would be the last main series Pokemon games released for the handheld system.

“When we were making Pokemon X and Y, we really were trying to push the 3DS system to its absolute limits – which is what we thought we’d done,” Ohmori told IGN. “But when Sun and Moon came around, we completely redesigned the system, and actually ended up pushing the 3DS even further to what we thought was the most we could draw out of it.

“With Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, we’ve tried to eke that out more and really, really push the system to its absolute limites, and we’re now feeling that perhaps this is the maximum of what we can get out.”

What’s Next for the Pokemon Franchise

The announcement is both good and bad news for Pokemon fans. Nintendo previously announced that Game Freak was working on a main series Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch, but that it wouldn’t come out until at least 2018. With no more Nintendo 3DS games on the radar, this means that we’re closer than ever to having our first ever household console Pokemon game.

However, it also means that the long-rumored Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes probably won’t happen for at least a couple more years. It’s really unlikely that Game Freak would want its first Pokemon game for a new system to be a remake instead of a brand new chapter for the franchise.

We don’t know much about what the Pokemon Switch game would entail, but Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara has mentioned that Game Freak was planning to take advantage of the console’s multiplayer capabilities and better visuals. Hopefully, we’ll get a closer look at a Pokemon game on the Nintendo Switch next year.

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