New Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Trailer Introduces Team Star, Gym Tests, and New Friends

New Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Trailer Introduces Team Star, Gym Tests, and New Friends

This morning, Game Freak and The Pokemon Company released a new trailer for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, and with it came new discoveries about the games’ Paldea region and all the new friends, foes, and pocket monsters we’ll find there when the games come to Switch.

The “Seek Your Treasure” trailer highlights several aspects of the upcoming games, including new characters, Pokemon, and riffs on old Pokemon ideas like gym battles. The video begins highlighting Team Star, who are the antagonistic team in Scarlet & Violet, and are framed as trouble makers from the school the player will attend depending on which game they’re playing. Mela, a new character shown in the trailer, is the boss of Team Star’s Fire Crew. She’s seen battling with a Torkoal on top of a Mad Max-style car covered in speakers. Also getting some spotlight in the trailer is Arven, a new friend who is an older student at the player’s school and a gifted cook…but not so much a gifted trainer. He’s shown battling alongside the player as they fight a massive Titan Pokemon called Klawf, a rock-type crab Pokemon debuting in Scarlet & Violet. Titan Pokemon will be boss encounters players will engage with alongside Arven.

We already knew gym battles would be returning, and the new trailer gave us another look at how Scarlet & Violet will be mixing up the formula. The video showed the player doing a Gym Test, which entailed finding and collecting multiple Sunflora in an environment. That gym seems to be run by Pressius, a grass-type gym leader seen using a Smoliv and Sudowoodo, who adorned the grass-type Tera Crystal. Given Sunflora is a grass-type Pokemon, it stands to reason the Gym Tests will be made to put a spotlight on that gym’s type, and vary from gym to gym. Geeta, a new character introduced as the Pokemon League Chairwoman, is also seen greeting the player, but it’s unclear if she’s just an organizer or if she’s a trainer/potential champion herself.

The trailer ends with some spotlight on two new Pokemon who wear suits of armor. Their names are Armarouge and Ceruledge. Where Armarouge’s armor is said to have belonged to a “distinguished warrior,” Ceruledge’s is said to be “steeped in grudges.” Armarouge will be exclusive to Scarlet, where Ceruledge will only be available in Violet.

More Pokemon:

Pokemon Scarlet & Violet are coming to Switch on November 18, and will be the series’ first true foray into the open-world RPG format. Both Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Sword & Shield experimented with this before, but their open spaces were sectioned off rather than being part of a continuous map. Should exploring all that space get lonely, Scarlet & Violet will also feature four-player coop so you can travel around Paldea with some friends.

Author: Deann Hawkins