I wish my morning commute was like getting the train in Pokémon Sword and Shield
The wrong type of Snover.
Pokémon Sword and Shield isn't at Gamescom, so Shigeru Ohmori, director of the game at Game Freak, has gifted us a charming little trailer to show off one of the many towns we'll get to visit on our Pokémon journey through the Galar region.
Galar is based on the UK, although I'm starting to get the sense it's based on the UK of about 50 years ago, because the town in the trailer seems far too quaint to look like anything you'd see in Britain nowadays.
For starters, where did the game's designers research to think this is what a typical English railway station looks like? Where are the queues? The overflowing bins? There's not even a delayed train or cancellation in sight.
The other mode of transport in Sword and Shield is via the Flying Taxi service run by Corviknight - a slightly terrifying crow-looking Pokémon that carries passengers between towns. It's nice that the game is giving us these options however, likely replacing the need to have a Pokémon that knows the move 'fly' in your party like in the older the titles.
The trailer continues to take us through the village, strolling past the quaint new Pokémon Centre, a friendly local greengrocers and a boutique clothes shop that looks like something out of Detroit: Become Human.
No countryside town is complete without hordes of sheep, so naturally there are cute little Wooloos all over the place. We also get a look at the Pokémon Lab, where Professor Magnolia researches Dynamaxing (which suggests this is a fairly early town in the game).
Despite looking like one of those travel adverts that cheerfully omits all of the negative points about the place it's trying to get you to visit, Pokémon Sword and Shield does look quite lovely, and I'm excited to explore the Galar region when the game releases on 15th November.
In the meantime, there's loads more information about the game you can check out, including a list of all the gen 8 Pokémon we've seen so far, and details on open world exploration and Pokémon encounters.