Pokemon games will continue for "hundreds of years," executive hopes, with "newfound realism" inspired by the original Pokedex

The Pokemon series will have soon been knocking around for 30 years, and if recent comments made by The Pokemon Company's chief operations officer are anything to go by, it's just getting started.

In an interview with The Guardian, Takato Utsunomiya has revealed that he hopes the series will continue to delight adults and children alike for many generations to come. "Our goal is to keep Pokemon alive for hundreds of years – making sure it survives well past our lifetimes," he says.

As of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, there are now over 1,000 of those lovable pocket monsters in existence, and while the series has grown into a cultural phenomenon spanning TV series, movies, and a trading card game, Utsunomiya says that the games will continue to be "the core of the brand" in the future.

As for what that future will be, the COO has teased that we could see Pokemon in the games behaving in a way that better reflects how they are portrayed in the original Pokedex. "In the original games, there's quite a gap between the descriptions in the Pokedex and what you actually saw in the game," Utsunomiya explains. 

"But starting with Legends Arceus and Scarlet and Violet, you see [Pokemon like] Bidoof creating dens in the game, and you have Pokémon travelling in packs. So there's a newfound realism of their setting. When it comes to delivering the descriptions seen in the original Pokédex … there's a lot more we can do there."

Despite some technical issues, we found plenty to love about the latest game. In our Pokemon Scarlet and Violet review, we described it as "the most interesting Pokemon game in a long time" with "ambitious ideas and fun concepts that inject life into the Pokemon formula."

Wondering where to start with the long-running series? Check out our pick of the best Pokemon games.