Pokemon Switch developer Game Freak has posted a job listing for a new UI designer. The studio is looking for someone to handle animations in a user interface. Details in the listing lead us to believe that this position is to work on the rumoured Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch.
In the job listing, Game Freak gives us a few details about what prospective applicants should expect to be working on. This includes routine expectations from a designer, like working to design specifications, but there’s more than that. The biggest flag being “UI animation design in deformed/manga/caricature style.” This points towards the job being UI design specifically on the as of yet unannounced Nintendo Switch Pokemon game, with manga-style UI being iconic to the series and with Game Freak’s project library being almost entirely Pokemon-centric for the past two decades.
But what’s interesting is that this style, perhaps more recognisable in its 2D pixel sprite form, is rarely animated outside of particle effects and low-movement pose changes. If the Pokemon Switch developers are looking for a dedicated animator for the user interface, is it possible that we’ll see an updated art style? In a thread started by Twitter user Pixelpar, who tweeted a photo of the listing with translated highlights, many suspect so. User MykeRave suggested a rather radical new approach, saying “Could this menu UI have something similar to persona 5?”
This new snippet of info comes after the now infamously-leaky Walmart Canada put up a listing for “Pokemon (Nintendo Switch)” on their online store. The whole debacle earlier this month of Walmart Canada putting up game listings seemingly in anticipation of E3 has generated a lot of discourse online, with many disagreeing on the accuracy of the leaks, with games like Borderlands 3 which has been confirmed as delayed. But Walmart admittedly did successfully predict Rage 2, through some stroke of sheer luck or even sorcery, so the jury is still out on that one.
There are some rumours that the Pokemon Switch release will be a remake of Pokemon Yellow, and others have different ideas and desires from the game. There’s definitely a whole host of possibilities for what the project could be, and it’ll be interesting to keep our eyes peeled over the E3 period just in case more details come to light.
