10 Biggest Hopes For Pokémon Winds and Waves

Pokémon Winds & Waves is primed to be one of the biggest games of 2027, and Game Freak has only teased fans with a small glimpse of its world. There are a ton of expectations going into Generation 10, and fans have a ton of things they hope are in the Nintendo Switch 2’s first mainline Pokémon duo.

Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch generation was a rocky one for the Pokémon franchise, with fans losing confidence thanks to the National Pokédex being cut, overall poor technical quality, and a feeling that the series is spinning its wheels. Pokémon Winds & Waves have the potential to lead the franchise into a new era, and with the tech of the Nintendo Switch 2 behind them, the glory days of Pokémania could return.

Pokémon Winds & Waves Needs To Look & Run Well

If there’s one thing Pokémon Winds & Waves needs to win back fans’ trust, it’s solid technical performance. The utterly abysmal quality of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet at launch upset a lot of players who were excited to enter the Paldea region, only to witness some of the worst frame rates and draw distances ever seen in a Nintendo game.

The hardware of the Nintendo Switch may be holding back Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, as the Switch 2 update felt like playing a whole new game. The footage shown of Pokémon Winds & Waves so far looks impressive, but that’s carefully curated gameplay clips and cinematics. Fans won’t be able to relax until they see proper gameplay footage, and that might not hit the Internet until the end of 2027.

Pokémon Rivals Should Be Enemies Again

A major problem with the Pokémon games is the Rivals, which have been underwhelming for years. Bede from Pokémon Sword & Shield had the potential to be awesome, harkening back to the jerk Rivals from the early games. Still, they got sidelined throughout the story, and their role was obliterated by the awfulness that is Hop, as he hijacked the main plot with his boring family problems.

The vast majority of the Pokémon Rivals have been boring characters who are more like friends who just battle the player on occasion. Having a Rival who is actually antagonistic to the player makes their defeat much more satisfying, which is why people still love Blue and Silver after all these years, yet often struggle to remember the ones from the later games.

The Indigo Disk’s Synchro Machine Needs To Return As A Base Game Item

The DLC content for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet was underwhelming, but it added one amazing feature. If the player explored the Terarium in the Blueberry Academy, they could unlock the Synchro Machine, allowing them to control Pokémon and use them to explore the overworld directly. This involved soaring over the landscape as a flying Pokémon or taking on gangs of wild encounters as a Legendary beast.

Unfortunately, the Synchro Machine was only usable in the final DLC, suggesting it was a late addition to the game. The ability to control Pokémon and ditch human trainers altogether was novel, and it made searching the Terarium way more fun. The Pokémon Winds & Waves trailer showed the camera going underwater, suggesting diving might be a significant mechanic this time around, and it’ll make way more sense to do this as a Synchro Machine Pokémon than as a human in a diving suit, especially if wild Pokémon are around.

New Eeveelutions Are Long Overdue

The Pokémon franchise has been gradually adding new Eeveelutions throughout the series. Still, the last time one was added was Sylveon back in Pokémon X & Y. It felt like the main reason Sylveon was added was to promote the new Fairy-type that was introduced in Generation 6, as it was one of the first Pokémon introduced for the Nintendo 3DS era.

Now that Pokémon has reached Generation 10, it’s time to introduce new Eeveelutions. The franchise is long overdue for Dragon, Ghost, Steel, Flying, and Poison-type Eevee forms, with exciting designs that will quickly become fodder for countless pieces of merchandise, to say nothing of the deluge of merchandise produced by Creatures Inc. Failing that, maybe the time has come for the original Eeveelutions to receive evolutions of their own, which could finally make them competitive.

Team Rocket Needs To Return To Pokémon

Image Via The Pokemon Company

Like the Rivals, the villain teams have been seriously unthreatening in modern Pokémon games. The last truly imposing villains were Team Flare from Pokémon X & Y, and since then, there have been the rapping jobbers of Team Skull, the glorified cheerleaders of Team Yell, and the ’90s TV show school bullies of Team Star.

While there’s plenty of scope for new villain teams to be part of the Pokémon franchise, the time has finally come for Team Rocket to make its glorious return. Team Rainbow Rocket did appear in Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, but that was a version from a parallel world. It’s time for an older Giovanni to take another shot at uniting all peoples within his nation, with his Executives from Pokémon Gold & Silver at his side, and bring an actual imposing team back into the series.

A New Pokémon Type Is Long Overdue

Image Via The Pokemon Company

The Pokémon series had a huge problem with type imbalance in the olden days, and new types have only been introduced sparingly to counteract them. Pokémon Gold & Silver added Dark and Steel-type to counter Psychic-types, while Pokémon X & Y added Fairy-type to deal with Dragon-type. The only new type introduced since was the Stellar-type in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, which was designed as a gimmick for Terapagos rather than as a major part of the battle system.

Pokémon Winds & Waves is the perfect time to add a new type to the franchise, seeing as it has been so long since one was included. The question is what type could arrive after such a long time, and whether it could be integrated into existing Pokémon? Sound-type has long been speculated by fans, and could tie into Chatot and the Exploud line, or a Magic-type for the Delphox line.

Pokémon Character Customization Needs To Be More In-Depth

Image via The Pokemon Company

One aspect of the Pokémon franchise that keeps going back and forth is character customization, including clothing options. If there’s one thing that gamers love, it’s wasting away the hours in a character creator, carefully designing elements that make their hero look unique and colorful, even if the camera is mostly stuck behind their shoulder.

In the past, Game Freak has been extremely lazy when it comes to character creators, giving players a handful of skin tones, haircuts, and eye colors and calling it a day. Fans have been lucky to get a couple of clothing options to choose from. Thankfully, Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a ton of character customization options and clothing choices, so it’s hopefully a sign of things to come in Pokémon Winds & Waves.

Bring Red & Blue Out Of Retirement For An Anniversary Battle

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Pokémon is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026, which is surreal for those who were there from day one, when the Pokémon anime first debuted back in the late ’90s. This means that Red is often considered the true Pokémon protagonist in many players’ eyes, with Blue, the original Rival, being the greatest opponent.

Red and Blue have occasionally returned for battles, facing the player in the Generation 7 games. As Pokémon Winds & Waves are the tenth generation, it’s time to show adult versions of both characters, with incredibly powerful teams, waiting to act as the ultimate opponents. This could also double as a reference to Pokémon Gold & Silver, arguably the best entries in the franchise, in which they face the new protagonist in some of the hardest battles in the series’ history.

Pokémon Gym Leaders Need To Have Teams That Scale To The Player

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet broke a lot of fans’ hearts by promising them the ability to challenge the Gym Leaders in any order. This was technically true, but their levels remained static, meaning there was still a suggested order for facing them. Sure, the player could power level and beat them out of order, but that just trivialized the rest of them.

It’s time for Pokémon Winds & Waves to make good on the promise of Generation 9 and do something that Pokémon ROM hacks have been doing for years. If the series is going to have more of an open-world approach, then Gym Leaders should have teams that scale to the player, based on the number of Badges they have.

Winds and Waves’ New Battle Mechanic Needs To Actually Effect Gameplay

Image by Yéred García

The Pokémon franchise has been introducing new battle mechanics since Pokémon X & Y, which are now replaced with new ones each generation. Some of these mechanics were awesome and added a ton to the game, like Mega Evolutions and Dynamaxing, while others were underwhelming and felt like tweaked versions of existing parts of the series, like Z-Moves and Tera-types.

Game Freak has had several generations to test out new battle mechanics and see what works and what doesn’t. It needs to be powerful, feel like a fresh addition, and encourage players to use Pokémon they normally wouldn’t. The time might have come to smash the glass and break out Pokémon fusions, as it’s something fans have wanted since day one, and would be an incredible addition to the franchise.

Video Game(s)

Pokémon GO, Pokemon X and Y, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon Sword and Shield, Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Pokemon Red and Blue, Detective Pikachu, Detective Pikachu Returns, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!

First Film

Pokemon: The First Movie

First TV Show

Pokémon

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Satoshi Tajiri