Pokemon Sword and Shield: A leak reveals the list of older Pokemon returning to the games

Pokemon Sword and Shield has had several leaks over the past couple of days. Many players who had early access posted across forums such as 4chan, Twitter, Reddit and the news spread like wildfire.

The newest leak shows a list of Pokemon from previous generations that will be returning to the game. Sadly, not every Pokemon will be available as controversially stated by game director Junichi Masuda.

Here is a picture of all Pokemon from Generation 1 to Generation 7. The boxes highlighted in green are Pokemon that will return to Sword and Shield and the boxes highlighted in orange are Pokemon that will have a Galarian form.

Credit to an Anonymous 4chan user

Due to a tight schedule, Game Freak could not supposedly design high graphical models of all Pokemon. But it begs to ask the question if Game Freak is finally being crushed under its own weight now.

Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and their evolutions will not be featured in Pokemon Sword and Shield. It is unfortunate especially since Charizard received so many different forms already and seems to be a "fan favorite".

It is reasonable to exclude starters of other regions to the game but a bias towards one particular starter does not seem fair to fans, especially since high-quality models of all Pokemon were already made for the first Pokemon Nintendo Switch game, Pokemon Let's Go: Eevee and Pikachu.

Nonetheless, Pokemon Sword and Shield is Game Freak's most ambitious game yet, with a significant improvement to the overworld and gameplay thanks to the Nintendo Switch's powerful hardware. Game Freak will be more easily forgiven if they address this shortfalling by bringing all Pokemon from all generations to Sword and Shield and in future games.

Pokemon Sword and Shield releases worldwide for the Nintendo Switch on 15 November 2019.