[STEAM] Why does it feel like no one is talking about the fact that we’re getting a literal Pokémon Animal Crossing game next week?

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Image via Nintendo And then there's Pokémon, that just about everybody knows about, even senior citizens and kids. We're getting a combination of two of Nintendo's biggest and most successful IPs, and I feel like I'm not hearing or seeing much hype or discussion about it.

Pokémon Pokopia is a life sim game that combines the world of Pokémon with gameplay of games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons or Dragon Quest Builders, and it looks and sounds like it has the makings of a huge title. So why does it feel like the hype levels are missing?

I could be way off base, but this game seems to be slipping through the cracks when it comes to the general gaming public that would be interested in a game like Animal Crossing, which took the gaming lexicon by the neck back in 2020.

One of the questions my friends ask me the most about my job is "when is the next Animal Crossing coming out?" Well, probably not for a long while, but this is easily the next best thing. Nintendo Treehouse played Pokopia during a live stream yesterday and showed off just how deep it is, and it evokes New Horizons memories in the best ways.

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In Pokopia, you play as a Ditto that's basically cosplaying as a human and rebuilding an island to make it habitable for the Pokémon you find. With the purple blob's powers to copy other Pokémon's abilities, you can basically transform to use HM moves to terraform and navigate the island.

Squirtle gives you Water Gun to water plants, Bulbasaur gives you Leafage to grow grass, Hitmonchan teaches you Rock Smash to break obstacles, and Scyther gifts you the power to Cut shrubbery in your way. You can befriend the Pokémon you find and recruit some (like Timburr) to build housing, all while adding them to your Pokédex. You get the picture, and that picture is one to be very excited about, if you ask me.

Pokopia also offers online multiplayer where friends can join in on your save and help you build out the area, gather materials, and more. Everything sounds awesome, so I hope the excitement will follow suit, because I feel like this could be a huge title for the Switch 2.

And I think maybe that could be an issue as to why I'm not hearing much about it: it's Switch 2 exclusive. It also has some competition with other high-profile games dropping on the same day, like Slay the Spire 2 and Marathon, but those don't feel like this one's target audience.

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Screenshot by Destructoid I don't often buy many games anymore, instead choosing to spend my time working on whatever I need to cover for Destructoid, but I will be purchasing Pokopia and playing it whenever I have downtime, because everything it's shown so far tells me it could bring back those cozy feelings of Animal Crossing to focus on as opposed to anything else happening outside of the game.

Pokémon Pokopia launches for Switch 2 on March 5, and I'm hoping it'll be the first Pokémon game to really grab me in quite some time.

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