Game Freak has long been known as ‘the Pokemon studio’. Since 1996, it's produced an array of beloved Pokemon games, including several spin-offs, and it’s largely made a reputation for itself working alongside Nintendo and also the Pokemon Company. Despite this, and also the have to constantly pump out new adventures, Game Freak loves to experiment and takes every opportunity to achieve this.
The studio is certainly not a one-trick pony, and in recent years has released a number of wild, colourful, and creative games to prove it, including: Tembo the Badass Elephant (2023), Little Town Hero (2023), and much more recently, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! (2023) – an Apple Arcade exclusive game and sequel towards the original Pocket Card Jockey for Nintendo 3DS.
This title expands around the gameplay of Pocket Card Jockey in many ways, maintaining this game’s hybrid solitaire and horse-raising mechanics with newly-3D graphics, and much more interesting ways to win. According to Game Freak, speaking to Axios, this creation was a part of a concerted push for more creativity.
‘We believe that it is very important for that studio to continue making and releasing titles outside the Pokemon series,’ Masao Taya, Ride On! game director said. ‘Recently, the resources needed for game development have grown and grown, so Development Department A person testing out a method of development where it really works with external studios.’
As Axios notes, Ride On! was developed with studios Infiniteloop Co. and Pixyda, who provided essential resources within the experimentation process.
Given Game Freak is now required to produce Pokemon games on the near-annual basis, reliance upon other studios is becoming essential to continue producing new creative titles, like Ride On!.
For now, the studio is focussed around the success of this mobile game, with plans for new updates and tweaks now announced. Taya has expressed a great fondness for that Pocket Card Jockey series, also it appears Game Freak is able to offer the game well within the coming months.
Taya’s enthusiasm, and Game Freak’s continued push to produce new and more creative games, means Ride On! isn’t expected to be the last non-Pokemon game we have seen from the studio. Hopefully, we’ll see more titles enjoy it, even as work on the Pokemon franchise grows more intensive and resource-dependent.
We anticipate seeing what’s next from the veteran studio.
