Pokemon Sword and Shield’s map will be the size of roughly two Breath of the Wild regions

Tally-Ho! If there’s one thing that I’m looking forward to this year with Pokémon Sword and Shield, it’s the chance to explore a world with a very British influence. That follows a trend set by previous games in the series, as Pokémon X/Y featured a Parisian locale set in the Kalos region while the Sun/Moon games went for a more Hawaiian theme.

Between the quaint villages, football stadiums and bustling big cities, there exists a zone that is wilder and untamed. Appropriately named the Wild Area of the Galar region, this huge slice of land where the various towns and cities can be found is aiming to be absolutely massive in scale. How big? How about two entire regions from Breath of the Wild stacked next to each other big. That’s according to a Nintendo representative who spoke to Metro, whose rough ballpark figure was staggering to say the least.

Breath of the Wild’s map is gigantic stuff, made up of fifteen distinct regions, each one capable of being roughly the same size as the map in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That’s some big thinking right there. When it comes to Pokémon games, those regions need to exist as more than just a spot where players can encounter Pokémon: They need to be biomes that suit the critters found there, channels between towns and zones where secrets can be found hidden away.

According to recent previews that just came out of the UK and the US (THANKS FOR THE INVITE NINTENDO NO YOU’RE CRYING), the Galar region is going to be all that and a fancy cup of tea. Smashing stuff, what.

Last Updated: October 18, 2019