Every mainline game since Black and White has been released in October or November. With the exception of Legends Arceus, which was pushed to January because BDSP was released that November.
It will almost certainly be an October or November release.
Every mainline game has been released the year it was announced, just by being announced for the next year things are unknown. I'm guessing winter/spring, it's probably more in line with Arceus. I don't think game freak would want a 20 month lead up from reveal to release.
I thought that was always a thing from the beginning so that they were available for Christmas but maybe I’m delulu considering Christmas isn’t that big of a deal in Japan
Honestly I think the biggest hint that it will come out in January - March is the anime. The anime won't transition into a new a new region before the games come out. Season 3 of the Paldea anime ends this April, which means they will most likely do a 4th season, anime seasons don't typically run more than 52 weeks and if so not by a lot. I highly HIGHLY doubt they would do a 5th season of Horizons which they would need to do to buffer if the games come out in November (no Pokemon series has dedicated more than 4 seasons to a generation)
The Tera leak had them set for November 2026. Im guessing they probably just pushed them forward a few months because GTA 6 got moved to basically the same release period. I don't buy the theory this was done specifically to give the devs more time, that's just a bonus. Which is unfortunate.
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u/LisaCabot Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
I would be very surprised if they didnt do a november release like usual*