Omega Force’s adorable Dragon Quest Builders-like Pokemon Pokopia game may look like a simple feat, but the upcoming crafting game has been carefully created by the largest development team the studio has ever seen.
The Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive game, set to launch on March 5, 2026, may not look as graphically intensive as something like Dynasty Warriors Origins, which is a brilliant technical showcase on Switch 2, but it has required a lot of manpower to get out of the door.
In an interview with Famitsu, which we translated via Google Translate, game director Takuto Edagawa revealed that the team size has eclipsed every prior Omega Force game since the studio was founded in 1996.
Shigeru Omori, director and head of development at Game Freak, explains that the studio had to outsource the game to a studio like Omega Force as the usual Pokemon team had never created a game of this style.
“Despite having made a prototype, Game Freak had almost no development know-how in this genre,” Omori said. “We were truly grateful to have Koei Tecmo Games, who had experience creating sandbox games, join us this time.”
“Every element of this game was created together with Game Freak and The Pokémon Company.”
While Omega Force
“I can’t give you a specific number of people [that worked on the game] but this is the largest number of people involved in any title developed by Omega Force to date,” Edagawa told the Japanese outlet.
Edagawa also explained that Omega Force was not alone in the development of Pokemon Pokopia. While the main bulk of development was handled by the Dynasty Warriors studio, Game Freak heavily collaborated on the game with a lot of back and forth between the two development teams.
“Although our division of roles meant that we were actively responsible for the majority of the development, it wasn’t a one-sided relationship where Game Freak supervised what we created,” he continued. “Every element of this game was created together with Game Freak and The Pokémon Company, and we were able to collaborate on the development in a very good relationship. I think that the results are evident in the game.”
For example, while Omega Force created the bulk of the game, Game Freak are responsible for the game’s massive localisation, an immense force considering the fact that the game has more lines of dialogue than any mainline Pokemon game.
The Pokemon Pokopia team explain that the massive development force for the upcoming spin-off allowed them to “achieve both incredible volume [of content] and quality” while also allowing them to release the game in a relatively short timespan.
Pokemon Pokopia releases exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5, 2026.
