Pokemon Walking Animations Discovered in Sun and Moon

Could the long-requested feature be headed to Pokemon Stars on Nintendo Switch?

By Alex Osborn

Ever since Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver featured sprites of the Pokemon that would follow their trainer around when traversing the world, fans have been requesting that the option return. According to files in Pokemon Sun and Moon, it appears this feature may have been cut from the game.

Hacker KazoWAR (via Kotaku) discovered there are "low polygon models and walking animations" within the files of Pokemon Sun and Moon, and has taken to Twitter to share his findings.

Others have since explored the files and discovered running, walking and resting animations for every Pokemon, as well as models of each creature with a lower polygon count, which would presumably serve as their representation when following the trainer around in the overworld.

Twitter user SleepyJirachi created several videos that offer a look at how these animations may have appeared in the game.

Whether or not these walking animations were cut from the game remains to be seen. Rumor has it Game Freak is developing an enhanced third version of Sun and Moon, codenamed Pokemon Stars, which will reportedly feature improved visuals, so these animations and low-poly models could appear in a future version.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

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