No, your eyes don’t deceive you – Game Freak has in fact confirmed some new gameplay details for Pokémon Sword and Shield.
Sadly, this latest batch of news doesn’t concern new Pokémon reveals or anything of the sort, though given the insufferable drought of information following the Switch games’ initial announcement we, and surely many others, welcome even the smallest morsels of knowledge with open arms.
That’s not to say we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, though. In fact, the request for Trainer customization options has been a consistently popular one from Pokéfans over the years and while initial footage had already implied as much, we now have confirmation of the fact. As per reputed Pokémon fansite Serebii, official acknowledgement of the feature for Sword and Shield comes by way of a T-shirt design contest. No, really.
The competition, held in Japan, asked fans to submit their own creations as part of a collaboration between The Pokémon Company and clothing company Uniqlo. The winning entry, as it turns out, will have their design printed on a line of T-shirts to be sold in the real world, with a digital counterpart intended for Sword and Shield. Players will subsequently be able to purchase the tee in-game, news accompanied with acknowledgement of character customization making the cut.
As you can see for yourselves above, the winning entry features adorably stylized depictions of Generation 1 classics Gyarados and Magikarp. Stylish!
It’s not the huge influx of new Pokémon Sword and Shield info we’ve all been waiting for, of course, but we shouldn’t have too much longer to wait on that front. As confirmed yesterday via the most recent issue of Japanese gaming mag CoroCoro, more is to come on June 21st, though we suspect some sort of appearance at next month’s E3 will precede that. Stay tuned.