Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are coming out in a little over one month, and while the latest 14-minute trailer went deeper into the main mechanics of the games and also revealed new Pokemon along the way, the way Gyms work remains a bit of a mystery still. This is because Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are built to be the ultimate open-world Pokemon games, which is the natural progression for the franchise after Gen 8 and Pokemon Legends: Arceus. As open-world games, Gen 9 titles are supposed to leave the decision about where to go and what to do first to the players, including the so-called "Victory Road" path.
The Victory Road path is meant to be one of three main adventures in the Paldea region, and here, players face eight Gym Leaders and ultimately both the Elite Four and the Champion in order to become the best of trainers. In the open world of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, players can go to any Gym in the order they prefer, and they can even leave Gym battles and the path to Champion for last, meaning that they will likely have a full team of pocket monsters to use against every Gym Leader. This can be quite problematic, however, if the leaks and assumptions about Gym battles not having level scaling are true.
Why Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Gym Battles Need Scaling
Level scaling is a common means in video games to allow players to keep the same feeling of challenge against enemies that would otherwise be so outleveled that fights would just be a button press away from victory. Pokemon Sword and Shield did have level scaling to a degree, with wild Pokemon in Gen 8's DLC being found at the same level as the best pocket monsters a trainer had, but in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet this might be trickier. Typically, Gym Leaders in Pokemon games have a specifically-crafted team of critters to use in battle, and they are chosen based on the level at which the Gym Leader is meant to be approached.
Paldea is an open-world region, so trainers can hypothetically approach what would normally be the eighth Gym first, and the first Gym for last. If Pokemon Scarlet and Violet don't use level scaling to adjust the battles against each Gym Leader, and their respective team compositions to match this, players could very well steamroll through this content at later stages. Assuming players would be drawn to exploring Paldea in the order they please, Gym battles are out of options if they don't use level scaling, as the aforementioned feeling of challenge would be gone almost entirely, at some point.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's approach to battles could down-scale the level of a player's team in order to match that of the Gym Leader's own team, meaning that over-leveling one's team past a certain threshold would be pointless. However, this is not the best solution out there because it implies a lot of work to adjust stats, move pools, and even Abilities or held items based on the evolutionary stage of a given critter. For example, fully evolving any of the three starters of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and then going back to the first Gym battle would mean adjusting the final form's battle prowess to match low-level opponents.
This is far from ideal; it would downgrade the open-world factor of Gen 9 to a degree, and it would be more complicated than level scaling itself. Alternatively, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet could do something similar to Battle Towers in the series, allowing only Pokemon of a certain level to be used in the fights, which again would mean that over-leveled teams would be a waste. With no level scaling, there are not many options to handle Gym battles in a satisfying way, and so the Victory Road design could be yet another cool idea that doesn't fit into the intended gameplay loop in Pokemon games.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launch on November 18, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.