New Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Details Seemingly Confirm Disappointing Leak

Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet were featured heavily during this week’s Pokemon Presents event, but not all of the news was good news for those who were hoping for certain features to be present in the new games. Details shared during and after the event appear to have confirmed a leak from before that suggested the Gyms players visit in the new Paldea region would not feature level scaling, an omission which some players feel goes against the open-world nature of the next Pokemon games.

For those who haven’t been keeping up with the info (both official and unofficial), some recent leaks suggested that Gyms would not be governed by level scaling. That meant that even though you could do them in any order, there would be a natural difficulty progression ramping up from the first Gym to the last to provide players a challenge throughout their journey as they catch and level up their Pokemon.

If you’re thinking that sounds a lot like the normal Pokemon experience, you’d be correct – that’s exactly how these mainline games have worked in the past. But with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the first open-world games in series where exploration is encouraged, players were hoping level scaling would be in place so that people could stumble across Gyms and find a challenge befitting their level rather than having to backtrack and grind.

And based on what was posted on the site for the new Pokemon games, it seemed like players’ theories were correct and that level scaling would indeed be in place where Gyms are concerned.

“These titles have the hallmark Pokemon story of going to Gyms and aiming to become a Champion, but there is no set path, so you can go to whichever Gym you want to challenge in the order you desire,” part of the site read.

But further down, we see another line that seems to contradict that theory.

“You can purposefully seek out a stronger Gym Leader, or you can simply stop by a Gym that happens to be located in a town you came across on your journey,” the features list continued.

An innocent enough line, but the fact that it says “a stronger Gym Leader” suggests that a ramping level of difficulty is in place.

Some Pokemon fans are still holding out for level scaling to be present in Violet and Scarlet, however. Those hopeful for the feature have pointed out that in the gameplay shown off this week, Pokemon levels during Gym Leader battles were conspicuously hidden. Others have suggested that “stronger” could mean different things here as opposed to just levels. Facing a fully evolved Pokemon with your unevolved creatures could prove a challenge, for example, and Type disadvantages could force players to revisit a Gym later.

The Pokemon Company has not clarified at this time whether or not level scaling will be implemented in the way players’ are hoping for, so while it remains to be seen how that’ll work, the absence of a confirmation in this latest info dump has not proved to be reassuring to wishful fans.