The long wait for Pokemon Legends: Arceus is nearly over, with Pokemon fans able to jump into the new adventure later this week. Nintendo is keeping the Pokemon Legends: Arceus hype train rolling by regularly releasing new trailers for the game, recently dropping a lengthy gameplay overview trailer for Pokemon Legends: Arceus as well as a new trailer that confirms the existence of new final evolutions for the starter Pokemon.
The latest Pokemon Legends: Arceus trailer is mostly focused on showing off a general overview of the kind of gameplay that fans can expect when it launches later this week. It shows the player character starting their Pokemon Legends: Arceus adventure, interacting with various NPCs living in the Hisui region and catching wild Pokemon. It also shows Pokemon Legends: Arceus players doing battle with hostile Pokemon as well, with fights against Noble Pokemon Kleavor and more shown.
The trailer concludes by showing the Pokemon Legends: Arceus starters evolving to their final forms, teasing that they will be transforming into new Hisui region variants of their previous evolved forms. So they'll still have the same names (Rowlet will become Decidueye, Cyndaquil will become Typhlosion, and Oshawott will evolve to Samurott), but they will look different and will likely be different types.
Unfortunately, there have been some extensive Pokemon Legends: Arceus leaks that have spread online, showing fans a bunch of different Pokemon that weren't officially revealed by Nintendo, including the Hisui region starters' final forms. Since Nintendo has opted not to officially reveal the Pokemon Legends: Arceus starter evolutions, it's clear that it wanted them to be a surprise, so fans who don't want spoilers for the game should be cautious on social media leading up to launch.
Changing up the final forms for the starter Pokemon is just one of many changes coming in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is set to be quite different from the other main series Pokemon games, abandoning the established formula in favor of embracing a more open framework inspired by games like Monster Hunter. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is not a true open world game, but it's the closest that the Pokemon franchise has gotten to it at this point, and it will be interesting to see how far it takes its concepts.
Fans will find out sooner rather than later if this ambitious new Pokemon game lives up to the hype as the Pokemon Legends: Arceus release date is later this week.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus launches Friday, January 28, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.