We're a month away from the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield on Nintendo Switch. With the Gen 8 Pokemon RPGs looming on the horizon, fansite Serebii reports that download cards for the games have begun appearing in stores in Japan, and they reveal the titles' file size, as well as a couple more returning Pokemon.
According to the download cards, Pokemon Sword and Shield will each weigh in at 10.3 GB. While that seems minuscule compared to many games on other platforms, that puts Sword and Shield among the largest first-party Switch titles. For comparison, last year's Pokemon games, Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, are each 4.2 GB.
Additionally, the download cards confirmed that the Gen 5 Psychic-type Gothita, as well as its evolved forms, will return in Sword and Shield, as will Sun and Moon's Fire/Dragon turtle, Turtonator. We still don't know how many Pokemon in total will be available in Sword and Shield--the games controversially won't feature every old monster--but more than 250 have been confirmed thus far.
Pokemon Sword And Shield News
Among those are a number of new Pokemon, including some Galar-exclusive variants. The most recent one we saw was Galarian Ponyta, which is exclusive to Pokemon Shield and looks like an adorable unicorn. Pokemon Sword, meanwhile, is getting a region-exclusive evolution of Farfetch'd called Sirfetch'd. You can see all the new Gen 8 Pokemon revealed so far in our gallery.
Pokemon Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch on November 15. You can read more about the games in our Pokemon Sword and Shield pre-order guide. Those aren't the only titles developer Game Freak has on the way to Switch soon. The studio is also releasing an original RPG called Little Town Hero on October 16. Game Freak recently released a battle system explainer for Little Town Hero.