With the Detective Pikachu movie pulling in significant box office revenue when it dropped last year, it seemed wise to expect a follow up to the video game adaptation it was based on to be greenlit in its wake. As expected, Nintendo was quick to jump on the trend and announce precisely that, letting fans know that Detective Pikachu 2 would be coming to Switch in the next few years.
Although news has since been brief about the upcoming second entry, it seems one of the developers behind the upcoming Detective Pikachu sequel, Dave Gibson, is looking to make the title as accessible as possible to audiences. Posting on Twitter, the Creatures Inc's lead UI / UX designer asked fans "what UI / UX mistakes drive you absolutely mad," claiming that the team wants to ship "a top end experience" so fan feedback is "invaluable."
The responses allude to a host of problems stretching back to Pokemon Sword and Shield and beyond, with players pointing out everything from the size of text to huge complaints about the layout of the battle system. So far, it seems one of the biggest shared issues is how the player is unable to see which Pokemon is coming next if they scroll too fast through the menus, with the Pokemon battle system refraining from repeating the information when you're deciding whether to switch combatants. Others have simply asked for the game to be more dynamic, with one user claiming "I would like the UI to be more context-aware, like not necessarily taking up the whole screen for all menus, and visually adapting to what you’re seeing through the use of transparency and dynamic coloring."
It seems the focus is more on immersion and less tedious menus, with some claiming Pokemon makes players waste far too much time reading text or organizing. For example, a big recurring theme in the comments has been the use of boxes to store Pokemon, with players claiming its a much slower process than it needs to be. It seems battles with less text is a common complaint as well.
Overall, it seems David Gibson has a lot of constructive criticism to work on when getting stuck into Detective Pikachu 2. The developer has even already taken to the comments to tell fans that he's noting down everything they're saying, claiming: "This thread has officially filled my work day tomorrow at the very least. Going to be interesting to see the common factors and get almost 700 items of feedback sorted and translated."
Detective Pikachu 2 is in development for Nintendo Switch.