Pokemon Sword and Shield will be the most beautiful Pokemon games to date

This is the Pokemon game announcement you’ve been looking for.

Nintendo hosted one of their regular Nintendo Direct online events on Wednesday, but this one was extra special. Because this one was the official announcement of the next main Pokemon RPG in the game’s storied series.

Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield is coming to the Nintendo Switch later this year. Like the Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! and Let’s Go, Pikachu! games that came out last year, Sword and Shield will be richly colored 3D adventures. Indeed, the new games seem to have taken the precedent Let’s Go set for how a Pokemon game should look and pushed it to a whole new delightful level.

All credit needs to be given to Game Freak, the primary developers behind all core Pokemon titles. At this point, they’ve made so many Pokemon games that it’s hard to believe there’s any landscapes or environments left for a Pokemon game to explore. But they seem to have done it again with Sword and Shield, where the protagonist starts amidst idyllic country farmlands and travels to architecturally impressive, bustling cities. This may very well be the most beautiful Pokemon game to date.

While the visuals resemble the Let’s Go games, the game mechanics will be slightly different. In a bid to be accessible to both experienced and non-experienced Pokemon players, Let’s Go simplified many game mechanics, such as giving players the option to choose which wild Pokemon to interact with. From the trailer, it seems that running into wild Pokemon will once again be a random, unavoidable event, and that you’ll have the chance to battle wild Pokemon before catching them.

Last but not least, the Sword and Shield announcement also came with information on the games’ three starter Pokemon and, predictably, the internet is already thick with conversation about which starter Pokemon it will choose. For fire lovers there’s Scorbunny, a bouncy rabbit. Grookey is the grass starter, a cute green monkey with a leafy hairdo. Sobble rounds out the choices, a water lizard that seems to always be worried.

From grand libraries to glittering mines, misty forests to a soccer stadium, Sword and Shield seems to have it all. And it certainly gives us plenty to think about while we wait to hear a concrete release date.