A third of Pokemon Sword & Shield’s team also worked on Let’s Go Pikachu
Analysis of credits reveals how Game Freak has balanced multiple titles
About a third of Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield’s 300+ person core team contributed to other projects during its development, analysis of the game’s credits reveals.
It’s not unusual for developers at large studios to work on multiple titles as their requirements fluctuate, but Pokémon studio Game Freak has had to balance more projects than usual in recent years.
In the 12 month period up to November 2019, the developer released three games – four if you count the console version of Giga Wrecker – which represents the busiest period in its 30-year history.
And in that time it managed to release two ambitious Switch RPGs, with analysis revealing it shared a significant portion of its staff across the projects to do so.
The studio has also recently placed particular emphasis on using original titles to train its staff, in theory improving its Pokémon games with the experience gained.
According to Game Freak, Sword and Shield went into full production in late 2017, after which it worked on at least three additional titles.
The Pokémon Company – whose stakeholders are made up of Game Freak, Creatures Inc and Nintendo – released both Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee and Pokémon Quest in 2018.
Game Freak also released original IP Little Town Hero in October 2019, a month before Sword and Shield.
Based on analysis of Sword and Shield’s staff credits, a small number of developers (less than 20) worked on the smaller Pokémon Quest and Little Town Hero projects.
However, over 100 people worked on November 2018 release Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, including leads in programming, character design, special effects, UI and more. That number represents around a third of Sword and Shield’s development team, and half of Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee’s.
Of particular significance, considering the attention surrounding Sword and Shield’s reuse of character models, is confirmation that almost half of the game’s character modellers also worked on Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, including that game’s lead character modeller Sakiko Maeda.
This will come as little surprise to fans, as the series’ 3D creature modelling is typically handled externally by Creatures Inc and the models appear to be shared across titles.
Of some 140 artists who worked on Pokémon Sword and Shield, more than a third worked on other projects during the game’s development.
More than 25 external companies are listed as having worked on the Nintendo Switch titles.
It’s worth noting that VGC’s figures include producer, engine and audio roles, which typically span multiple projects simultaneously.
In recent years Game Freak has pushed its Gear Project initiative, which it says encourages creators to pitch original game ideas during quiet periods.
So far Gear Project has resulted in HarmoKnight, Pocket Card Jockey, Tembo the Badass Elephant, Giga Wrecker and Little Town Hero, all of which released after 2012. With its roots firmly planted in 2D games, Gear Project is also seen as a test bed for Game Freak’s 3D game aspirations.
Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield reviews went live ahead of the Switch title’s November 15 release date.
Pokémon Sword and Shield core team credits
(* = Listed in Let’s Go credits / ** = Listed in Pokémon Quest credits / *** = Listed in Little Town Hero credits)
Director
Art director
- James Turner
Programming section director
- Tomoya Takahashi
3D graphics section director
- Maiko Fujiawara
VFX UI section director
- Takao Unno*
Planning section director
Field programming
- Lead: Nozomu Saiot
- Yicheng Fang
- Nicholas Dahms
- Tomoya Hasegawa*
- Katsunori Suzuki
- Motoaki Isobe
- Naoki Sugawara*
- Tsuyoshi Inada
UI system programming
- Lead: Toru Nagihashi*
- Hiroyuki Nakamura*
- Manabu Ishioka*
- Alfredo Spadafina
- Yu Muto
- Hiroki Nakyama
- Akio Sanga
- Taku Wakabayshi
- Yuya Fukushima*
Network programming
- Lead: Katsuhiko Ichiraku
- Takashi Arai*
- Takuto Takabe
- Taksumo Ohno
- Katsuya Ohgami
- Sungu Emrah
- Akira Endo
Battle system programming
- Kai Munakata
- Toshihiro Obata*
- Tsuyoshi Watanabe**
- Tadashi Ito
Pokemon Camp programming
- Lead: Katsuhiko Ichiraku
- Junya Ikuta
- Raichi Ihara
- Takuya Kawakami
Event system programming
- Lead: Kazuki Saita**
- Takumi Harada*
- Takuya Iguchi*
Environment programming
- Lead: Katsumi Ohno
- Katsuya Ohgami
- Miyuki Iawasawa
- Kazuyoshi Ueda
Sound system programming
- Javier Arciniegas
R&D general manager
- Sousuke Tamada*
Game engine programming
- Lead: Ryota Takeuchi*
- Makoto Takebe*
- Naoya Uematsu*
- Syo Araki*
- Morihiko Miryu*
- Ratinukulkit Satit
- Yuta Koike
Technical art
- Lead: Tomoya Kanehira*
- Yuki Yamamoto*
- Satoshi Tamaki
Games programming
- Lead: Shinya Goto*
- Masateru Ishiguro*
- Liu Haijian
Build engineering
- Masanori Kanamaru*
3D map graphics
- Lead: Mana Ibe
- Noriko Uono
- Tsubasa Matsuzuaki
- Kensaku Nabana*
- Haruka Nakamura*
- Yuichiro Takao
- Kengo Matsuoka
- Suzuna Ote
- Koji Tanaka
- Toshiyuki Hashimoto
- Masahiko Toda
- Tomohiko Osugi
- Etsuko Nakashoji
- Takashi Watanabe
- Satoshi Katsube
- Tomo Hasegawa
- Aika Matsuzawa
- Syu PanSi
- Du Juan
- Cui Lina
- Zhao Jinyu
- Kikumi Shingu
- Fang Gao
- Umi Tominaga
- Kaori Koyanagi
- Tetta Igarashi
- Hayato Endo
- Jinyoung Sung*
- Mayumi Shigeno*
- Sawako Okada*
- Miho Ujiie*
- Shinichiro Tsukada
- Naoki Goda*
- Shigeaki Ishibashi*
- Shinya Nirasawa*
Character modelling
- Lead: Junsei Kuninob
- Hideki Iwata*
- Daisuke Inoue
- Sakiko Maeda*
- Hitomi Imaizumi*
- Yutan Cheng*
- Tomoyo Kimura
- Yuina Mori
- Shinji Tamano*
- Koji Kobayashi
- Yuki Kanayama
- Shigeki Ao*
- Takashi Nagasaki
- Hiroyuki Fukumoto*
- Hiromitsu Mori*
- Ryosuke Kamimura
- Risa Takashima
- Masanari Kubo*
- Chua Pei San*
- Liew Hoi Leong*
- Suresh Kumar*
- Lee Chun Hung
- Ong Zi Ting
- Istiono Darmawan
- Prakhar Bhatnagar*
- Dhavanessh Soundararajan
- Dale Stromberg*
- Hidenori Tanaka
- Shinobu Ueki
- Lai Chuan-Ming
- Yusaku Andou
- Seishiro Wada
- Miyuu Nakaya
- Jun Arai
- Haruyasu Akagi
- Ayaka Yamazaki*
- Miyoshi Tanabe*
- Kana Sasaki
- Satoru Goto*
- Taizo Hiramoto*
- Minhee Kim*
Motion Design
- Lead: Junsei Kuninobu
- Hiroshi Nakagomi
- Isao Kakuuchi
- Shun Ozawa
- Aoi Inaba*
- Mai Takano*
- Haruka Umemura*
- Bonsoo Koo*
- Natsumi Inoue*
- Nobuyuki Maruyama
- Ryosuke Oshiro
- Yasuko Motoki*
- Harumi Noguchi
- Kazuya Fujinami*
- Mariko Yoshida*
- Fumiaki Enomoto
- Yoshinori Ito
- Kiminobu Yano
- Rintaro Sasaki
- Shogo Harasawa
- Chou HsinYi
- Umi Kubota
- Hiroko Hasegawa
- Kento Yoshishiba
- Nobukazu Nakabayashi
- Jiro Hanzawa*
- Stephen Redmon
- Yurina Yoshinaga
- Kaito Chiba
- Saori Takahara
- Satoshi Tanabe
- Shotaro Hakuya
- Manami Uzawa
- Ryusuke Furuya
- Airi Kikuchi
- Tobias Schlage
Special effects graphic design
- Lead: Yosuke Uematsu*
- Toshimitsu Arai*
- Hitomi Ogawa*
- Kojiro Matsuyama*/***
- Koichi Yasuda
- Takumi Nakamura
- Erena Maruya
- Risa Maehara
- Natsune Kudo
- Takuya Yokoyama
- Ayano Kawamata
- Shohei Ogoma
Movie graphic design
- Lead: Mayuka Yoshikawa*
- Eri Ishida
- Shun Matsumoto
- Mizuki Tachi
- Ibuki Yamagata
- Mai Hasegawa*
- Romanov Higa*
- Miyaguchi Tomohiro*
- Makino Tatsuya
- Tanaka Kentaro*
UI graphic design
- Lead: Erika Kuga*
- Momoka Takasu*
- Mitsuhiro Ariga*
- Marie Honda*
- Mikiko Meguro***
- Masayuki Jimpo
- Harauka Oshima
- Motofumi Fujiawara
Graphic management support
- Emi Takeishi*
Main scenario planner
- Toshinobu Matsumiya
Story planning
- Ryota Watanabe
- Yuichi Murase
- Yuya Watanabe*
- Yoshikazu Kojima*
- Yohei Asaoka
- Genya Hosaka
- Akinori Asaba
- Katsunori Suginaka*
- Rena Koda*
- Akihito Tomisawa
- Yuichi Sano
Field Planning
- Lead: Hiroyuki Tani
- Rei Murayama*
- Hiroaki Ishige
- Miku Yoshida*
- Takuto Maeda
- Natsuki Tsurugai
Field map planning
- Kazuki Muroi
- Kensaku Iwata
Battle planning
- Lead: Shigeki Morimoto
- Kota Furushima
- Koji Nishino*
- Kei Setoguchi**
UI planning
- Tetsuji Ohta*
- Hidenaga Endo
- Yuki Asada*
- Seika Nakatsuji
Communication features planning
- Lead: Teruyuki Shimoyamada*
- Atsushi Imura
- Takeshi Kawachimaru**
Sound planning
- Keita Okamoto*
Sound
- Go Ichinose***
- Minako Adachi
- Toby Fox
Sound effects
- Hitoshi Okamoto*/***
- Hiroki Mogami
- Sayaka Yaegashi
Sound coordination
- Kazuki Kitamura
Recording and mixing
- Takahiro Oshima
Sound system support
- Satoshi Hirai
Recording coordination
- Kenji Saito
Music Preparation
- Hironori Anazawa
Pokemon and character design
- Lead: Suguru Nakatsui*
- Kenji Matsushima*
- Chihiro Hayashi*
- Hironobu Yoshida*
- Emi Ando
- Kyoko Abe
- Tomomi Kaneko*
- Fumie Kittaka
- Misaki Hashimoto*
- Tzuen Huang*
- Akira Katsuta
- Seimi Oshiro
Supervisor
- Ken Sugimori*/**
Character design
- Megumi Mizutani*
- Take
- Haruko Ichikawa
- Yusuke Ohmura
- Sanosuke Sakuma
Field map design
- Sakai Motohiro
- Saba Keisuke
- Kawashima Akihiro
- Matsubara Mayuko
- Yabashi Shotaro
- Namiki Usen
- Nokura Shougo
- Anhira Wandy
- Yamamoto Takuya
- Kotouno Jun
- Kawasaki Mariko
- Sakurai Yuuki
Pokemon design
- Hiroto Ito*
- Yusuke Ohmura
- Hitoshi Ariga
- Atsuko Nishida
- Yusuke Kozaki
- Kanako Eo
- Saya Tsuruta
- Take
- Ami
Producers
- Junichi Masuda*/**
- Hitoshi Yamagami*/**
- Akira Kinashi*/**
- Mikiko Oshashi
- Takanori Sowa*/**
- Shin Uwai*
General producers
- Tetsuya Watanabe*
- Shinya Takahashi*/**
- Takato Utsunomiya*/**
