Not too much has been said about New Pokemon Snap since its official announcement trailer with fans not even knowing the release date of the title. With the wait after the New Pokemon Snap trailer being released in June, players have been speculating on what to expect or have already forgotten about the announcement.
With the game likely still going through development, New Pokemon Snap likely has a lot to offer players and a lot to surprise them with. Keeping that in mind, only 36 different Pokemon were seen in the announcement trailer compared to the original N64 game's total of 63 different Pokemon. This could mean there are far more than what fans could expect.
Something that New Pokemon Snap should do, however, is to take some influence from a piece of Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield's Crown Tundra DLC. This could have the potential to make a good game into a fantastic game to follow up from the original.
Every Single Pokemon
As of the Isle of Armor DLC in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, there is a total of 893 Pokemon in the main games. This does not include regional variants or form changes, or the new Pokemon coming in Crown Tundra. While even with DLC, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield haven't been including every single Pokemon, it has taken strides to get players to enjoy old favorites such as the legendries with the Crown Tundra DLC area where legendary Pokemon can be caught.
Due to New Pokemon Snap not needing to have each Pokemon's stats and other internal information, it could be possible for every single Pokemon in the series to appear allowing players to go on the largest possible photo hunt. This number of Pokemon would also help reflect real world ecosystems as well as increase the replay value for each stage. In addition, the amount of Pokemon being as large as possible has the potential for many unique stages and puzzles for players to figure out. It would also explain why the release date hasn't been announced yet due to the amount of time needing to be devoted to putting each and every Pokemon in a place they can call their natural habitat.
Every Legendary and Mythical Pokemon
While the Crown Tundra will give players access to every single legendary Pokemon, New Pokemon Snap could possibly allow players to take pictures of not only the legendary Pokemon, but the mythical Pokemon as well. There could even be a mythical Pokemon hidden within every stage requiring players to play through multiple times to figure out how to find them, and considering Mew's role in the original Pokemon Snap, there is a lot of potential for other stars to shine.
Meanwhile, the legendary Pokemon could also be difficult to find with them being hidden boss fights of sorts with them being very difficult to take clear pictures of. This would be similar to Mew's boss fight in the original game. However, this would give designers a lot of room to make unique scenarios for each legendary Pokemon, while some could even be grouped together like Latios and Latias.
The amount of legendary Pokemon could have the potential to make the adventure in New Pokemon Snap become much more grander in scale. Considering the player would literally be documenting legendary Pokemon, it could serve a story purpose for researching them and figuring out their natural habitats.
Why This May be Unlikely
There are many hopes currently out there for New Pokemon Snap. While it would be wonderful to see every single Pokemon released as of now appear in a single game again, it will probably not happen. In the original Pokemon Snap, the movements of the Pokemon and the situations they are in are mostly pre-scripted with them following their own unique patterns and behavior. In a way, each single Pokemon follows their own little unique story as the player takes photos of them. With the original having only 63 different species of Pokemon, this was doable. However, having over 800 different species of Pokemon available with some of them being in groups or making multiple appearances could very much be out of scope for development.
While it is likely that there will be a lot of Pokemon appearing in New Pokemon Snap, it is very likely that not every single Pokemon will be able to be found. Like with Pokemon Sword and Shield's DLC expansions however, there could be more stages with more types of Pokemon to be released as DLC in the game's future after release. With New Pokemon Snap's prospective release date still being unknown, however, the possibility of this DLC is still also unknown.
How Many Pokemon Will There Be?
While the exact number of Pokemon available in New Pokemon Snap is unknown, it will most likely have far more Pokemon and stages than the original N64 title. A proper estimate however cannot be made until either another trailer is released or the game itself is released.
With plenty of Pokemon players being upset about the lack of certain Pokemon in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield even with the DLC expansions, there will likely be fans who will be upset by the lack of their favorite Pokemon in New Pokemon Snap. Of course, with development being very quiet with no news since June of 2020 as of October 2020, it could be possible that every single Pokemon could actually appear. This would make New Pokemon Snap to be the first Pokemon game in a long time to have every single Pokemon openly available without restrictions or requiring some kind of event.
No matter what happens with New Pokemon Snap, there is a guarantee that every Pokemon generation will have at least a couple of Pokemon to represent it. Additionally, there are Pokemon that have appeared in the trailer that aren't available in Pokemon Sword and Shield, meaning that the game's roster isn't limited by what is currently available in the current mainline Pokemon title. This contributes to the possible potential for this spin-off game's roster of Pokemon available for photos.
New Pokemon Snap is in development exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.