Android Games

The Final Fantasy series’ numbered entries haven’t been turn-based RPGs for quite some time. With each new game, the series moves further away from its classic turn-based roots toward a more action-oriented combat system. Combat has never been further from being turn-based in a Final Fantasy game more so than in Final Fantasy XVI, which is the most action-based game in the mainline franchise yet. I recently played about two hours of the game to dive deeper into the combat system’s mechanics, and you can read my preview thoughts on that here. 

But after playing some of the game, I spoke with the FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki about this continued shift to deep action and whether Final Fantasy will ever return to its turn-based roots. As for why the series has moved comfortably into action, each of these three development leads had an answer. 

Yoshida: "When creating FFXVI, you can't ignore the data that's been taken from the fan base, from Final Fantasy I to XV. 

So, again, creating a Final Fantasy, a numbered Final Fantasy, has become such an endeavor, to the point where your development costs can go upwards of $100 million, just to create one game. And so to recoup that development cost, you need as many people playing your game as possible. And while a lot of the older fans are used to what Final Fantasy had in the past, a lot of younger [players] have never played a Final Fantasy game. They grew up playing first-person shooters, they grew up playing games like [Grand Theft Auto], where basically you press a button and something happens immediately. 

It's not a command-based system. When you press the square, your guy shoots. Why do you have to wait for him to shoot, I should be able to press square and he shoots immediately. You have this whole generation of gamers that grew up with this, [and you need] to get those generations to come in and also play [FFXVI], which has this image of not being that type of game. You have to make it appealing to that group as well. And so to get that group to come in and introduce them to the series, we decided to go down this route – action was pretty much the only way.

We were all raised on turn-based games and we all love turn-based games. However, just imagining Clive standing there as like “revenge” [Yoshida posed like an angry and revenge-riddled Clive and said “revenge”] but then just kind of standing idly and doing nothing is something that we don't think quite fits the character in the story."

Takai: "For me, it's the same as [Yoshida], that we want to get this game in the hands of as many people as possible. But like [Yoshida] said, a lot of gamers in their 20s, even some in the in the early 30s…are so used to playing games where if you you tilt the stick, someone moves. If you press the button, action happens – that is all immediate. It's all responsive and directly off of that action. And so trying to push that back [and make players] wait for everything, didn't feel like the direction that games are moving in.

And again, there was always an option to possibly make this a turn-based game. But when thinking of the graphical fidelity and the realism that's provided by the PlayStation 5 technology, to have a game where people just stopped and not do anything in that type of high quality graphics is going to create something that is going to feel off and we wanted to avoid that. And to make something where you have two people in the middle of a battle but they're both just kind of sitting there looking at each other, waiting for somebody to implement a command, is going to be kind of jarring. I think that to make that work, somebody's going to have to work really hard and come up with a really, really cool idea. But I want to leave that for the next generation.

So the ability system that we have with learning and using the Eikonic abilities and getting the Eikons, that's something that actually we based off of Final Fantasy V’s ability system. For me, it was thinking back, 'if we took the Final Fantasy V ability system and made it into something that was real time action, this is what it would look like' and that was kind of that design concept.

To those players out there that are maybe kind of still on the fence thinking, 'I don't know if I want to play this because I'm a command user or a command-based, turn-based user type of person,' I'd ask them to at least try it out once and see how it feels because we think you’ll change your mind on this as well."

Suzuki: "Because it's a decision that we believe we kind of had to make…because we know that there are players that will say that they…might not play XVI because it's gone from turn-based to action, we have to look at that. On the other hand, there's also probably a lot of players that are like, 'well, if it's turn-based, I'm not going to play this game at all.' And so again, it's all about bringing the game to a lot more people and with our action system that we have making it accessible, we think that we can get those players that are like, 'I don't know if I want to play this…action game,' [but] because of our accessibility, we think that it can be kind of a gateway for players that are not into action games to learn about how fun action games really are.

And of course, I also like turn-based games as well so we don't want people to think that the people that are creating this game all hate turn-based games."

Yoshida also pondered if a mainline Final Fantasy game will ever return to turn-based combat. 

“We don’t know if our team is going to be doing Final Fantasy XVII,” he says. “I would say we’re probably not going to be doing XVII. But again, there’s still that possibility out there because…you never know; we might just go back to pixel graphics as well. If you do go back to pixel graphics, that makes it easier to go back to something turn-based.”

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The Final Fantasy series’ numbered entries haven’t been turn-based RPGs for quite some time. With each new game, the series moves further away from its classic turn-based roots toward a more action-oriented combat system. Combat has never been further from being turn-based in a Final Fantasy game more so than in Final Fantasy XVI, which is the most action-based game in the mainline franchise yet. I recently played about two hours of the game to dive deeper into the combat system’s mechanics, and you can read my preview thoughts on that here. 

But after playing some of the game, I spoke with the FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki about this continued shift to deep action and whether Final Fantasy will ever return to its turn-based roots. As for why the series has moved comfortably into action, each of these three development leads had an answer. 

Yoshida: "When creating FFXVI, you can't ignore the data that's been taken from the fan base, from Final Fantasy I to XV. 

So, again, creating a Final Fantasy, a numbered Final Fantasy, has become such an endeavor, to the point where your development costs can go upwards of $100 million, just to create one game. And so to recoup that development cost, you need as many people playing your game as possible. And while a lot of the older fans are used to what Final Fantasy had in the past, a lot of younger [players] have never played a Final Fantasy game. They grew up playing first-person shooters, they grew up playing games like [Grand Theft Auto], where basically you press a button and something happens immediately. 

It's not a command-based system. When you press the square, your guy shoots. Why do you have to wait for him to shoot, I should be able to press square and he shoots immediately. You have this whole generation of gamers that grew up with this, [and you need] to get those generations to come in and also play [FFXVI], which has this image of not being that type of game. You have to make it appealing to that group as well. And so to get that group to come in and introduce them to the series, we decided to go down this route – action was pretty much the only way.

We were all raised on turn-based games and we all love turn-based games. However, just imagining Clive standing there as like “revenge” [Yoshida posed like an angry and revenge-riddled Clive and said “revenge”] but then just kind of standing idly and doing nothing is something that we don't think quite fits the character in the story."

Takai: "For me, it's the same as [Yoshida], that we want to get this game in the hands of as many people as possible. But like [Yoshida] said, a lot of gamers in their 20s, even some in the in the early 30s…are so used to playing games where if you you tilt the stick, someone moves. If you press the button, action happens – that is all immediate. It's all responsive and directly off of that action. And so trying to push that back [and make players] wait for everything, didn't feel like the direction that games are moving in.

And again, there was always an option to possibly make this a turn-based game. But when thinking of the graphical fidelity and the realism that's provided by the PlayStation 5 technology, to have a game where people just stopped and not do anything in that type of high quality graphics is going to create something that is going to feel off and we wanted to avoid that. And to make something where you have two people in the middle of a battle but they're both just kind of sitting there looking at each other, waiting for somebody to implement a command, is going to be kind of jarring. I think that to make that work, somebody's going to have to work really hard and come up with a really, really cool idea. But I want to leave that for the next generation.

So the ability system that we have with learning and using the Eikonic abilities and getting the Eikons, that's something that actually we based off of Final Fantasy V’s ability system. For me, it was thinking back, 'if we took the Final Fantasy V ability system and made it into something that was real time action, this is what it would look like' and that was kind of that design concept.

To those players out there that are maybe kind of still on the fence thinking, 'I don't know if I want to play this because I'm a command user or a command-based, turn-based user type of person,' I'd ask them to at least try it out once and see how it feels because we think you’ll change your mind on this as well."

Suzuki: "Because it's a decision that we believe we kind of had to make…because we know that there are players that will say that they…might not play XVI because it's gone from turn-based to action, we have to look at that. On the other hand, there's also probably a lot of players that are like, 'well, if it's turn-based, I'm not going to play this game at all.' And so again, it's all about bringing the game to a lot more people and with our action system that we have making it accessible, we think that we can get those players that are like, 'I don't know if I want to play this…action game,' [but] because of our accessibility, we think that it can be kind of a gateway for players that are not into action games to learn about how fun action games really are.

And of course, I also like turn-based games as well so we don't want people to think that the people that are creating this game all hate turn-based games."

Yoshida also pondered if a mainline Final Fantasy game will ever return to turn-based combat. 

“We don’t know if our team is going to be doing Final Fantasy XVII,” he says. “I would say we’re probably not going to be doing XVII. But again, there’s still that possibility out there because…you never know; we might just go back to pixel graphics as well. If you do go back to pixel graphics, that makes it easier to go back to something turn-based.”

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I recently previewed Final Fantasy XVI, the new mainline single-player Final Fantasy game coming to PlayStation 5 this summer. You can read my full thoughts on what I think of the game after going hands-on with it for about two hours here. But during this preview, I was also able to participate in a group interview of FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, the game’s director Hiroshi Takai, and its combat director Ryota Suzuki. 

One facet of FFXVI’s development I was especially interested in is how Creative Business Unit III, the internal studio behind the upcoming game, is able to balance creating this new title while continuing to develop its extremely successful MMO, Final Fantasy XIV. Yoshida, who is FFXIV’s producer and director, says it’s not as different as you might think. 

 

“It’s probably not as different as you’d expect creating an ongoing [game like FFXIV] as well as a standalone game because for Final Fantasy XIV, if you look at the original A Realm Reborn and our expansions, they are all stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends,” Yoshida says through a translator. 

He says one thing that is different, though, is that in developing an MMO, you have to create the hook for the next story. 

“You don’t have to do that in Final Fantasy XVI,” Yoshida continues. “If we wanted, we could put a hook in there that gets you excited for maybe future content or something like that. But again, that wasn’t our aim with Final Fantasy XVI. We wanted to create a story that had a beginning and that also ended and so we did. We wanted to focus on [protagonist] Clive’s life and so rather than the story being broader, we are focused on him. That’s not to mean that it’s not as deep as well, because we are so focused that we get a deep look into the entirety of Clive’s life.” 

On that note, during a presentation before I went hands-on with FFXVI, Yoshida explained that the game will follow Clive in his teens, 20s, and even 30s. Clive’s younger brother, Joshua, is a Dominant, meaning he can tap into the power of an Eikon, which is what FFXVI calls summons like Ifrit and Garuda. It seems the relationship between Clive and Joshua is at the heart of the game’s story. Yoshida mentioned during this preview that Clive’s story is centered on revenge and its effects on people. Takai says the game will end with a sense of closure, too, unlike an MMO that must tee up what’s next for the game. 

I was also curious how Yoshida feels about Creative Business Unit III competing against itself with Final Fantasy XVI, considering it’s the same studio that develops FFXIV, a truly beloved MMO. For Yoshida, that pressure doesn’t get in the way of the honor the team feels to have been asked to develop FFXVI. 

“When the company approached us to work on the next numbered Final Fantasy, we took that as an honor,” Yoshida says. “It’s something that wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have the success of Final Fantasy XIV. It was something granted to us because we had that success. 

“And we knew right off the bat that it was going to be a very difficult thing. [The opportunity came] at a point in time when we were working on Final Fantasy XIV to grow the game. And understanding that at the same time, to also create another game, that’s going to be very challenging. What we did was prioritized Final Fantasy XIV and made sure that we could grow it to a point that we were satisfied. And that’s why for so long, while XVI development was happening, it was happening with a very small team because we wanted to finish on XIV until we got to the point we wanted to get to.”

With development on the game nearing its end, Yoshida is excited that people are able to preview the title and go hands-on with it. 

“We’ve now hit a point where I can actually breathe a sigh of relief.”

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I recently previewed Final Fantasy XVI, going hands-on with the upcoming game for roughly two hours. I learned a lot about the game, which is due out on PlayStation 5 this summer, including how developer Creative Business Unit III approached accessibility in FFXVI. 

You won’t find difficulty settings like easy, medium, and hard. Instead, there’s a story-focused mode and an action-focused mode. The story-focused mode will be easier, while the action-focused mode appears to be the default difficulty setting. And within each of these modes, there are special accessories that can be equipped to tailor the difficulty of combat to your liking. I was able to use five – I’m not sure if there are more  – and I liked how easy it was to swap them in and out, and the effects on my in-game combat actions were great. It’s quick, easy to understand, and effective.

Here Are The Five Accessories I Previewed

Ring of Timely Focus: With this equipped, right before an enemy hits you, time slows almost to a halt. You’ll see an R1 button prompt appear on screen with a circle depleting around it to indicate how much time you have left. R1 is the dodge button, so this setting makes dodging away from enemy attacks much easier. 

Ring of Timely Assistance: Clive is joined by a dog named Torgal (yes, you can pet Torgal). You can manually select Torgal’s attacks, but wearing this ring lets Torgal attack automatically. 

Ring of Timely Strikes: Combat in FFXVI revolves around mixing and matching various moves to create combos. With this ring equipped, you can just press Square and Clive will perform the combos automatically. It essentially allows you to complete combat scenarios using one button. 

Ring of Timely Evasion: Allows Clive to automatically dodge most attacks. 

Ring of Timely Healing: When Clive’s HP drops to a certain point, he will automatically use a potion to heal (so long as you still have potions). 

During a group interview with FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki, the three discussed Creative Business Unit III’s approach to accessibility, especially as it relates to the different modes and accessories listed above. 

“To talk about how we got to where we are with this and the idea of making the game as accessible as it is starts off with me being 50 years old,” Yoshida says through a translator. “I have pride as a gamer and so when you first play an action game – I love action games – it always says, ‘What [difficulty level] do you want to play? Easy, medium, or hard?’ And again, because I have pride as a gamer, I don’t want to choose easy. But then, of course…the first time you die, then it comes up, ‘Do you want to switch to easy?’

“I didn’t so I didn’t want players to feel that as well. We wanted to create a system where players wouldn’t be forced into this decision to choose between easy, medium, or hard. We wanted something that felt accessible but also customizable so that each player could create something that felt like a difficulty level that matched them and that was my first order to Takai.” 

Takai then brings up the rings, citing that the first question he asked himself after Yoshida’s order was, “What type of players are there?”

“And so we listened to players that are maybe not as good at doing combos and attacking,” he says through a translator. “Some players maybe are not as good at dodging as other players. We found out that each of these things that players would not be good at, and then we wanted to create a system that would help players out in those individual areas. And then for me, I told our battle director to make that happen.”

In steps Suzuki, who has a history designing various combat systems across 20 years at Capcom, working on games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Devil May Cry 5. He says that experience has given him a pretty good idea of what action enthusiasts want. 

“I know what to create for them…[but] you have a whole audience of players that are maybe not used to this actually,” he says through a translator. “You have fans of the series and fans of the RPG genre. And we couldn’t just make a game for heavy action users. We need to make this game for everyone…and make sure that we include those players as well, so my highest priority was, again, creating something that was accessible to those users who had not played a lot in the action game genre.”

That led to the creation of the accessory system. Suzuki says Creative Business Unit III believes that this system creates something that makes the game accessible to players not as familiar with the action genre while not impeding on what action fans want out of FFXVI. 

“We have a high ceiling…but we also lower the floor to make it more accessible.”

Yoshida adds that rather than asking if players want an easy, medium, or hard experience, FFXVI asks, “Do you want to focus on the story or do you want to focus on action?” But from there, he says “it’s all about the player deciding how much story focus and how much action focus they want, and not going to the system and changing the difficulty from the system but changing the difficulty via customizing Clive himself.”

"By customizing [Clive], you can change the difficulty and customize that to your playstyle and I think this is a really, really good and fresh idea.” 

I was also able to page through the game’s settings to see what other accessibility features players can expect. It’s important to note that this preview build was not finished and does not reflect the final game, though, so things could change. And if I had to guess, this was not all of the settings we’ll be seeing in the final game. 

• Subtitles: There are subtitles, and text size can be adjusted. You can also add a background to the subtitles to make them more visible. There was also a setting for hearing impaired subtitles. 
• Chatter Log: There’s a chatter log to view conversations that have taken place, which is great because a lot of conversation happened in the two hours of FFXVI I played – being able to catch back up on what I’ve forgotten, or read what I might have missed while fighting an enemy, is nice. 
• Controller Layouts: I didn’t switch controller layouts but the option is there. 
• Target Follow: This setting adjusts the camera when a target is offscreen, presumably to move the camera toward them. 
• Visual Alerts: This was described in the settings as an on-screen waveform that acts as a visual representation of in-game sounds and music. You can adjust the size and opacity of visual alerts. 

 

There are also other mainstays like the ability to adjust camera controls, audio volumes, and more as well. But again, we won't know the full depth of the settings until Final Fantasy XVI hits PlayStation 5 on June 22. 

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I recently went hands-on with Final Fantasy XVI, the next mainline entry in the long-running series due out on PlayStation 5 this summer, to play roughly two hours of the game. Most of that playtime consisted of me controlling Clive as I battled alongside ally Cidolfus Telamon (always a Cid, right?) through a castle dungeon. However, toward the end of my preview, I was able to fight Garuda, one of the game’s Eikons, while controlling Ifrit, another Eikon. 

At this point in the game, roughly five hours in according to FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida, Clive has little control over Ifrit. A special few in the world of FFXVI are Dominants, meaning they can tap into the power of an Eikon and even transform into them. Cidolfus, for example, can become the Ramuh Eikon. Clive, however, is not a Dominant (but his younger brother, Joshua, is). 

I’m not exactly sure what story events led to this moment – I tried asking the team but they remained tightlipped – but regardless, it was good fun. Ifrit features just a few attacks and lumbers around the giant battlefield while attacking Garuda. Yoshida says this fight reflects Clive’s inexperience utlizing the power of Ifrit. After I defeated Garuda, Cidolfus even had to transform into Ramuh to put an end to my uncontrolled, anger-filled rampage. 

During a group interview with Yoshida, the game’s director Hiroshi Takai, and its combat director, Ryota Suzuki, a question about FFXVI’s Eikon vs. Eikon combat was asked. According to Yoshida, each Eikon fight will be unique to that specific combat scenario. Because of that, developer Creative Business Unit III drew on various sources of inspiration for different fights. 

“The Eikon vs. Eikon battle that you got to play today, the Ifrit vs. Garuda – that comes very early in the game,” Yoshida says. “And basically, each of these battles that we have, have themes, and the theme for this one happened to be that we wanted to create something that felt like a giant pro wrestling match, something that had a lot of weight to it. But then, as you might have seen in the trailers and vidoes that we showed you today, the Eikon battles are all very unique. For example, we have one controlling the Phoenix and that’s more like a 3D shooter. We also have the Titan battle, [which is] very…fast paced, high speed action. And so basically, all of these are all different.” 

Yoshida says the one I played during my preview – Ifrit vs. Garuda – is inspired by the anime and shows the team watched as children. 

“Things like Evangelion, other things like Godzilla or Ultraman, those are the things that we took inspiration for that individual fight,” he says. “But then for the Titan battle, again, we didn’t use those as inspiration. We used different things for inspiration because the battle is completely different. And so we want players to feel that when they play each of these battles, they’ll see that we’ve spent all this time and effort and development costs to create this one battle that feels really, really unique. 

And then we never use that again in the game and you think, ‘Wow, that’s kind of a crazy thing to do.’ But that’s what we wanted to do because we wanted to challenge ourselves and challenge the player as well.”

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Following the release of Forspoken earlier this year, Square Enix has announced that the game's developer, Luminous Productions, will merge into the company. 

It's a strange announcement, given that Luminous Productions was already a studio under the Square Enix umbrella. But now, it seems that Luminous Productions as an individual entity will be no more and, thus, won't be seeing its name appear on future titles.

"The merger is part of the Company's efforts to bolster the competitive prowess of the Group's development studios, a goal set forth under its current medium-term business strategy," a press release reads. "Square Enix has developed numerous AAA high-definition (HD) games and possesses a wealth of intellectual property (IP) and content. Luminous Productions Co., Ltd. is meanwhile equipped not only with AAA title development capabilities but also technical expertise in areas such as game engine development. Combining the two entities will further enhance the Group's ability to develop HD games." 

As you can see, it's not that Luminous Productions' developers are no longer with Square Enix; it's just that the team has been merged into the wider Square Enix umbrella. As for why remains unclear. Perhaps it's the result of Forspoken's mixed reception at release, but that's speculation. 

For more, read Game Informer's Forspoken review. 

Did you play Forspoken? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below!

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Just a few days after the one-year anniversary of Elden Ring's release, developer From Software has revealed that an expansion for the game is currently in development. 

Revealed by the official Elden Ring Twitter account, this expansion is called Shadow of the Erdtree. Not much is known about the expansion, but those familiar with the game's lore (especially those that have completed the game) might be able to piece together what this new adventure will consist of. Alongside the news, From Software has released what appears to be a piece of concept art for the expansion. 

Check it out for yourself in the tweet below: 

Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together.
An upcoming expansion for #ELDENRING Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development.
We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between. pic.twitter.com/cjJYijM7Mw

— ELDEN RING (@ELDENRING) February 28, 2023

Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together. An upcoming expansion for Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development. We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between.

This is exciting news for fans of Elden Ring, but given that From Software has only revealed the expansion is in development, with no release date or window in sight, it might be a while before our return to the Lands Between. 

In the meantime, read Game Informer's Elden Ring review to find out why we gave the game a 10. 

What do you want to see out of this Elden Ring expansion? Let us know in the comments below!

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How do you remake a game many consider to be a masterpiece? In our conversation with Resident Evil 4 (Remake)'s Director Yasuhiro Ampo and Game Director Kazunori Kadoi, we learned a few of the ways the team at Capcom is attempting this. From quality-of-life improvements and updated controls to a new knife system and parry mechanics, they've done quite a lot; and you can learn about it in the video below.

For more Resident Evil 4, check out Game Informer's YouTube Channel to see the rest of our coverage of the game. You can also visit our hub for exclusive RE4 coverage, or watch the new trailer revealed at Sony's recent State of Play.

Disclaimer: Capcom helped to arrange and cover travel accommodations for two in Osaka, Japan, in association with this cover story. As the world’s largest video game magazine, Game Informer’s editorial team is proud to remain impartial, professional, and committed to the truth in all forms of our content, regardless of any outside factors.

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As part of today's Pokémon Presents livestream, Netflix joined the festivities to announce Pokémon Concierge. This new animated series is the first collaborative production between Netflix and The Pokémon Company and features a decidedly different direction from previous animated adventures in the Pokémon universe. 

The narrative, which is told through stop-motion animation from Dwarf Studios, stars Haru. a concierge a the Pokémon Resort, and Psyduck. The stories that unfold center around her interactions with the various Pokémon that pass through the resort. 

"Netflix is looking forward to delighting fans in Japan and around the world with Pokémon Concierge, an entirely new visual and storytelling experience featuring groundbreaking stop-motion animation set in the Pokémon world in close collaboration with The Pokémon Company," vice president of Netflix content in Asia Minyoung Kim said in a press release. "We're also excited to reveal this new series on Pokémon Day and provide fans with even more things to look forward to on this special holiday celebrating the popular franchise."

Ever since spring 2020, Netflix has been the exclusive home to the Pokémon anime in the United States. While those seasons have continued the story of Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, Pokémon Concierge represents a completely new focus within the world of Pokémon.

We don't know much more about this new series, but we did receive a teaser trailer, which you can see below.

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The Pokémon Trading Card Game has been a staple pillar of the Pokémon franchise dating back to the late '90s, but through a new collaboration between The Pokémon Company, Ceatures Inc., and Nendo, the team behind the TCG hopes to deliver the definitive way to play. Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic delivers everything you need to play, including preconstructed decks and various elegantly redesigned gameplay accessories. 

The content of this premium set kick off with three specially designed 60-card decks. These decks are headlined by Base Set Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise but feature cards from the history of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. In addition to those classic cards, players can also look forward to all-new cards like Ho-Oh EX, Lugia EX, and Suicune EX. Cards included in this set are ineligible for tournament play, as these decks and cards were designed for balanced play within this set.

The high-quality game board folds up to fit into a special case that houses the entire set. The board features card-placement zones for active Pokémon, benched Pokémon, a card deck, discard pile, and prize cards. This board also features a compartment that can hold up to three decks, plus a toolbox with various gameplay accessories that are needed to play. The play area itself features a premium fabric surface that allows cards to slide across without getting caught, and a fabric hinge eliminates gaps in the folds. The black-and-white color scheme adds an air of elegance while allowing the cards to be the visual focus.

Included in the accessories are stackable damage counters, three-dimensional poison and burn markers, and metal orbs that replace the traditional Pokémon coins. On top of that, players roll metal orbs down a chute instead of rolling dice. The set includes heavy aluminum damage counters and Poké Ball card sleeves to match the visual aesthetics of the game board.

 

We don't yet know when Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic will be available or how much it will cost, but given the quality of the set, it's probably safe to say that it won't be the cheapest addition to your Pokémon TCG collection. All we know so far is that Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic will arrive at some point in late 2023, making it a potential hot item for the holidays. For more on the Pokémon Trading Card Game – including galleries of the recent expansions – be sure to click the banner below to visit our hub!

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