Pokemon Legends Z-A remembers it's an open-zone JRPG, adds actual parkour and platforming so you can explore the city
It's not quite Assassin's Creed, but it'll do
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We just got a lot of information about Pokemon Legends Z-A during the Pokemon Presents February show, and there are some new movement features coming to the game that will let you parkour and fly around Lumiose city.
Pokemon Legends Z-A will take place entirely within Lumiose city, and it seems to be after the events of X and Y, as Z-A is running a hotel with his resurrected Floette that died in the great war.
The city is being turned into a paradise where people and Pokemon coexist, and you'll have full access to the rooftops to help you get around the Paris-inspired maze of streets.
You won't be climbing directly up walls like Assassin's Creed's Ezio or Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Link, though. A warp pad will magically teleport you from the street to the roofs, but once you're up there you'll evidently be able to jump and climb between them, and use some sort of ball of light to double jump and glide over to more distant buildings.
This seems like a cool addition to the series and should make walking around as a trainer far more interesting than it has been previously. I enjoyed the bike puzzles in Ruby and Sapphire, but that's the last time it felt like exploration had any meaningful changes made to it.
Pokemon Legends Z-A is due "late 2025," so there's no fixed date yet, but we have a window at least. What are the odds the Pokemon Company is holding out until GTA 6 announces its launch dates, like many, many other publishers likely are?
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I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.
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