The Pokémon Company announced remakes of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl during a Pokémon Presents video on Friday.
The remade games are called Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl, and they will arrive at the end of 2021. The remakes will maintain the game’s aesthetics, updated with a new, very beautiful and colorful style. “The sense of scale of the original games, cities and routes has been carefully preserved,” he told The Pokémon Company during the video. Players will be able to choose between the three original starting Pokémon: Turtwig, Chimchar and Piplup. The Legendary Pokémon for Shiny diamond is Dialga, with Palkia for Shiny pearl.
In a press release, The Pokémon Company said Shiny diamond and Shiny pearl have been updated to include “player conveniences” that have since appeared in more recent Pokémon games, as well as “close and personal Pokémon battle scenes”.
Shiny diamond and Shiny pearl are being developed by ILCA, Inc., the studio behind Pokémon Home. ICLA’s Yuichi Ueda and Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda are directing the games. (Masuda directed the original Diamond and Pearl games.)
Game fans are eager to hear about the Diamond and Pearl remakes; with 2021 being the 15th anniversary of the games, rumors have been around for some time. The Pokémon franchise itself will turn 25 in 2021 as well.
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were originally released in 2006 in Japan; they came to the United States and elsewhere in 2007. Part of the fourth generation of Pokémon games, they were released for the Nintendo DS system. More than 100 new Pokémon have been added to the games, along with many new features, such as Wi-Fi compatibility used to play online.