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Nintendo dives deep into ‘Pokémon Sun and Moon’ at E3

Pokemon’s back, and with a bang. During Nintendo’s Treehouse live stream at E3 2016, company reps sat down with longtime Pokémon developer Game Freak and revealed a few juicy new details on Sun and Moon, the upcoming twin additions to the endearing monster-hunting series.

The play session, which marked the first live demonstration of Sun and Moon, laid out many of the details in full. The new games are set in the Alola Region, a tropical archipelago inspired by the volcanic islands of Hawaii, and that’s not all that’s new. There is now an improved character selection screen with a number of races and gender combinations to choose from, and you have two new NPC guides: Professor Kukui and his ‘mysterious’ assistant, Lillie, who introduce you to the game’s most fundamental mechanics. Traversal and battles between Pokémon are also rendered fully in 3D. New catchable Pokémon are in tow, too — Litten, a kitten-like fire type; Popplio, a water type; Rowlet, a grass-flying type; Yungoos, a normal type; Pikipek, a normal/flying type; Grubbin, a bug-type; and two new legendary Pokémon, Solgaleo and Lunala.

E3 2016: Lego Worlds builds on its success by offering online multiplayer option

The premise on Sun and Moon might sound familiar to longtime fans of the series: you assume the role of a young trainer who recently moved to the Alola Region. After bidding farewell to your mother, departing home, and receiving your first Pokémon, you set off on your first grand adventure across the islands.

The narrative many not tread new ground, but Sun and Moon’s marks a technical departure from past Pokémon entries. In battles between Pokémon, for instance, the game camera now moves “dynamically” to the left and right, and when you’re Pokémon is ready to strike, each selectable attack’s accompanied by a detailed explanation. Another enhancement: tapping the 2D icon of the enemy Pokémon pulls up its defense, and accuracy stats, and, if it’s a Pokémon you’ve fought before, a truncated battle history with the effectiveness of the attacks you’ve previously used against it. Capturing a Pokémon is a tad more verbose now, too: when a new creature’s added to the Pokédex, indicators show how many variants of the captured Pokémon you’ve yet to encounter.

Trainers in Sun and Moon are a touch more fleshed out than the homogeneous almost-clones in previous Pokémon titles. Each opponent has their own set of unique animations, down even to the way they toss a Pokeball. And some battles, like those against local gym leaders, take place in arenas in front of cheering crowds of NPC onlookers.

The single-player experience isn’t all that’s been revamped. Sun and Moon feature a new four-player multiplayer mode, Battle Royal, in which participants choose up to three Pokémon and battle one at a time. It’s a free-for-all battle: first three trainer to lose all three Pokémon cede victory to the remaining player, and the final score is a combined tally of the number of Pokémon defeated and the number of Pokémon remaining.

One of broader goals of Sun and Moon was to make Pokémon more “accessible” to franchise newcomers, said Nintendo. To that end, settings screens have been “simplified” and “pared down.” And it’ll ship in more than nine languages, including Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, and Korean — a series first. But in a nod to fans who’ve sunk a few hours into the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, X, Y, Omega Ruby and/or Alpha Sapphire will have their efforts rewarded in Sun and Moon: both games are compatible with the Pokémon Bank, Game Freak’s online Pokémon storage system.

Pokémon Sun and Moon hits store physical and digital shelves for the Nintendo 3DS on November 18 in Japan, North America, and Australia, and on November 23 in Europe. It lands on the Pokémon series’ 20th anniversary; the original Pokémon was released on February 27, 1996. It’s grown, since then — Nintendo’s Pokémon properties now generate a collective $2 billion a year annually, and lifetime sales of the games in May surpassed 200 million copies.

Kyle Wiggers
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
With E3 2023 gone, other gaming events need to step up
A purple E3 logo floats in the air.

Despite how inevitable the complete downfall of E3 felt over the past several years, E3 2023’s official cancellation still strings as it’s a significant loss for the game industry. For gamers, press, and developers, the show served multiple purposes that digital livestreams and scattered publisher-specific events don't currently replicate. In lieu of E3’s cancelation this year, and potentially forever, it’s time for other gaming events to step up and help push the video game industry forward.
Why we lost E3
I’m lucky enough to have the experience of attending three E3 shows across 2017, 2018, and 2019 and many publisher-run events focused on specific games or tighter game lineups. In its final years, E3 felt like the perfect middle ground to the gamer-focused PAX and industry-focused GDC, where people from all walks and sides of the video game industry could come together, see what’s coming in the future, and share their love for games.

It also felt more freeing than publisher-run events, as I discovered and experienced games of all sizes that I may not have otherwise and got to meet many people from every angle of the game industry. Apparently, the Entertainment Software Association struggled to convince enough people that this style of expo was important four years after the last physical event.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Entertainment Software Association president Stanley Pierre-Louis blamed E3 2023’s cancellation on the Covid-19 pandemic, “economic headwinds” due to the current recession that impacted marketing budgets, and the fact that “companies are starting to experiment with how to find the right balance between in-person events and digital marketing opportunities.”
The first two are understandable and have impacted a lot of physical events over the past couple of years. Still, the last reason speaks to a bit more worrying of a shift for those looking to network, get attention from the press, get a broader look at the industry’s future, or even pitch a game.
What we lose
Events are a great way for indies to get unexpected and much-needed attention from players and the press; look at the chance encounter that got one of our team’s freelancers hooked on Homeseek at PAX East. Now, indies will have to hope to gain attention at those more indie-focused events like PAX or be cherry-picked to be featured in a more prominent company’s showcasing. There’s also the networking and pitch factor to it.

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E3 2023 has officially been canceled by the ESA and ReedPop
E3 logo

The Entertainment Software Association and ReedPop confirmed that E3 2023 has been canceled following a report that broke the news. E3 2023 was supposed to take place between June 13 and June 16.
Earlier today, IGN reported that two of its sources received an email from the Entertainment Software Association saying that this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo has been canceled because it "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." Soon after, a tweet from the official E3 account confirmed that "both the digital and physical events for E3 2023 are canceled."
https://twitter.com/E3/status/1641546610218811393
E3 was once a prominent annual video game industry trade show but has struggled to re-emerge since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. E3 did not take place in 2020 or 2022, and a digital-only attempt at the show in 2021 did not live up to expectations. The ESA was attempting to bring the show back this year with the help of PAX organizer ReedPop, and even approved press passes for the event already, but it appears the developers and publishers have lost faith in E3. Ubisoft pulled out of the show earlier this week after initially committing to be there, while Sega, Bandai Namco Entertainment, and Level Infinite confirmed they wouldn't be there in the following days.
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Ubisoft will no longer be attending E3 2023, even though it said it would participate in February. Instead, the game publisher behind Assassin's Creed and Far Cry plans to hold its own Ubisoft Forward Live event in Los Angeles this June.
Ubisoft confirmed its change in plans to Video Games Chronicle today, with a spokesperson saying that while Ubisoft "initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we've made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction." This is a change in messaging from just over a month ago when Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, "If E3 happens, we will be there, and we will have a lot of things to show."
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ReedPop has not yet commented on the fact that Ubisoft is no longer attending E3 2023. 

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