Pokémon series director and producer Junichi Masuda has said that for a hypothetical Pokémon Snap 2 to be made, it would need to have a “very unique twist.”
The topic of Pokémon Snap 2 was brought up at the end of an interview with Masuda by GameCentral, which was mostly regarding upcoming games Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.
“If I could just end with two quick requests, one of which I think you get a lot and one of which I’m sure you don’t. Firstly, I can’t believe it’s 2019 and there still isn’t a Pokémon Snap 2,” the interviewer said. “You had the Wii U GamePad and now you’ve got Nintendo Labo VR, which has an actual physical camera, why is there not a Pokémon Snap 2?! I’ll pre-order it right now if you agree to make it!”
“All I can say is that I don’t think we can just make the same thing again,” Masuda said after some laughter. “So we’d have to come up with a very unique twist on this if we do make another one.”
Masuda, who has been with Pokémon developer Game Freak since 1989, has worked on the Pokémon series since Pokémon: Red Version and Pokémon: Blue Version.
Most recently, he was the director and general producer of Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
Pokémon Snap, the Pokémon spin-off first-person rail shooter, launched in North America in 1999 for the Nintendo 64, and had players snapping photos of different Pokémon in various environments; it was later released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007 and the Wii U Virtual Console in 2017.
While it received a mixed critical reception at launch, it has become a bit of a cult classic years later, with many fans vying for a sequel.
Masuda had previously discussed the possibility of a Pokémon Snap sequel in 2014 during an interview with Kotaku, in which the question “on a scale of 1-10 how badly does pokemon snap Wii u [sic] need to happen?” was asked.
Masuda’s response then was very similar to his answer now.
“It’s really popular! We get this a lot,” Masuda said. “If they were to create another one, they’d probably need to come up with some kind of new invention to make it fresh… of course, everyone thinks of the GamePad, but whoever made it would have to come up with something unexpected.”
However, he did assure readers of the viability of a Pokémon Snap 2.
“Pokemon Snap was developed by HAL, originally, which is now part of Nintendo,” Masuda said. “I’m the director at the Pokémon Company, and we’re certainly not stopping it from coming out!”
What’re your thoughts? Do you have hope that a Pokémon Snap sequel will ever see the light of day? Let us know in the comments!
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Written by Daniel Dell-Cornejo
Daniel is an editor at Nintendo Wire. Always with his head in the clouds, he is never apart from his creative thoughts – a blessing for an aspiring fiction writer. As a journalist and lifelong gamer, he aims to provide readers with the very best in Nintendo coverage.
