Nineties kids, rejoice: After more than 20 years, The Pokémon Company announced that another Pokémon Snap is finally in the works.
Beloved by countless millennials (and Pokémon lovers of all ages), the original Pokémon Snap for the Nintendo 64 put players on a tranquil railcar driving through nature, where a diversity of Pokémon prance or fly by. The objective was simple: Snap pictures of the Pokémon, which Professor Oak judged on a point system based on the size of the Pokémon in the photo, its pose, and your photographic technique. Part of the fun was tossing apples at the Pokémon to grab their attention long enough to capture their visage.
The upcoming version for the Nintendo Switch, succinctly titled New Pokémon Snap, has no release date yet. Its trailer includes gorgeous panaramora of buffalo (Bouffalant) fields, a whale (Wailord) diving through the ocean, and, of course, Pikachu munching an apple on the beach. Players will travel across islands to build their Pokémon Photodexes.
The announcement came as part of The Pokémon Company’s Pokémon Presents, an announcement livestream about upcoming games, including new mobile titles Pokémon Smile—a tooth-brushing game—and Pokémon Cafe Mix. The Pokémon Snap announcement arrived as a shock; players have been begging for a reimagining of the classic game for years. There there are countless Pokémon games available for the Switch; Pokémon Sword and Shield is one of WIRED’s picks for the best games on the console. But Pokémon Snap scratches that same itch without asking players to battle or mess with them. It’s like birding, but for fantasy pocket monsters.
With the pandemic impacting E3, game and console announcements have been slow-bleeding out of publishers for weeks, and will continue to do so in the next few months. Last week, Sony shared more details about its next-gen console alongside some stunning new games. On Monday, Microsoft published its list of games that are available both on the Xbox One and upcoming Xbox Series X as part of its “smart delivery” program. Over the next month, more announcements will come out of the Steam Game Festival, EA Play, New Game+ Expo and a Ubisoft digital event.
As long as Nintendo is feeling generous, maybe the Pokémon gods would reconsider bringing back the Pokémon Snap arcade cabinet—a rare monster that made appearances in another ‘90s dinosaur: Blockbuster Video.
More Great WIRED Stories