Pokémon Winds & Waves Will Have Historic Launch, According To New Info

There have been a lot of mysteries surrounding Pokémon Winds and Waves, and even after a trailer during February’s Pokémon Presents revealed the new Starters for Gen 10, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Now, a bit of new info has appeared online, and it’s showing a pretty promising start to Winds and Waves on the Switch 2.

Over on X, the CentroLeaks account shared an image of the various games greenlit for Switch 2 ahead of the console’s launch. This list includes games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza that have already been released. “Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves were among the first games to formally start development for Switch 2,” the post reads. You can view the full post below.

Pokémon Gen 10 Was Greenlit Early On Switch 2

Between this and the TeraLeak suggesting production on the Gen 10 games started in 2021, that’s a pretty good sign for Pokémon Winds and Waves. Recent entries have been heavily criticized as being rushed out, often resulting in games that have performance issues or lack a certain amount of polish fans have come to expect from a major property like Pokémon.

Because the Gen 10 games don’t release until 2027, that means there are six years between the start of development for Pokémon Winds and Waves and the time they actually will release. If that feels like a lot of time for the Pokémon games’ development cycle, that’s because it’s considerably longer than the one the previous games had.

Comparatively, leaks have suggested the development time for Gen 9’s Scarlet and Violet games was only around two and a half years. That’s a major difference, and it’ll hopefully pay off when the Gen 10 games launch next year.

Can More Development Time Help Winds & Waves?

The real question is whether this seemingly extra development time will fix the performance issues that plagued Scarlet and Violet, especially at launch. Pokémon‘s first foray into a truly open-world with Gen 9 had mixed results. The Gen 9 games were ambitious, but the world often felt empty and various performance issues became meme-worthy online. Sword and Shield, the first mainline Pokémon games on Switch, had similar complaints.

While the Gen 9 games did become more stable over time, this issue is hopefully something Winds and Waves won’t have to deal with at launch if development on Gen 10 gets more time. We likely won’t know the answer until the games launch in 2027. Still, it’s promising that Pokémon Winds and Waves got the greenlight so early, and seem to be a major priority on Switch 2.