Pokemon Sword and Shield were pretty hated before they came out. While fans found the graphics to be decent, it all went downhill when Game Freak announced that this game wouldn’t include the National Pokedex. This meant fans couldn’t transfer the classic critters they had with them from the older games, which is when many fell out of love with the franchise.
Of course, I say that, yet Sword and Shield sold millions of copies on release, selling more than 26 million as of 2025.
Interestingly, this has since been the pattern with these Switch Pokemon games; hardcore fans will be negative about any new releases, only for these JRPGs to sell gangbusters. From the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes to Legends: Arceus and even the controversial Scarlet and Violet, all of these entries have their critics, but they have also sold millions.
As someone who was there for all that “controversy,” it’s kind of hard to believe this all started with Pokemon Sword and Shield. Now that these titles have been out for a few years, I look back at this game’s history and wonder if fans were too harsh.
Shield Your Eyes
When Sword and Shield were revealed at E3 2017, fans thought that the games looked…fine. They weren’t offensively ugly graphics or anything like that; the two RPGs just looked decent. Some fans felt that it just looked like the 3DS games upscaled, but there was no denying that they looked sleek.
Fan opinion started changing when some of the new features were revealed. Dynamax looked like a fun alternative to Mega Evolutions, blowing your favorite Pokemon up to giant proportions. The open-world-esque Wild Area was also a nice change, since we could finally see the critters we were trying to catch.
It seemed like everything was going to be okay. Then the National Pokedex announcement happened.
Dexit
During a routine Nintendo Treehouse in June 2019, it was announced that the National Pokedex would not be transferring over to Pokemon Sword and Shield. This meant players couldn’t transfer their older Pokemon to the game unless they were already part of the new region’s Pokedex. Because the folks at Game Freak couldn’t ensure everyone’s favorites would be in the region, fans got angry and “Dexit” happened.
Worded after “Brexit,” the Dexit movement was fans finally putting their foot down and no longer purchasing Pokemon Sword and Shield. It seemed harmless enough, but some fans started harassing developers who were working on the game and fellow players who were still excited despite all of the controversy. Needless to say, there was a lot of friction in the Pokemon community regarding these titles, and it made bringing this game up feel like a bomb every time.
Looking back at it today, this was all pretty ridiculous. After all, this is a series of games made for kids, and they’re going to enjoy Pokemon no matter what. Many of them probably don’t even know what a National Pokedex is, and they just wanted to catch some new monsters and win the Pokemon League.
But members of “nerdy” fandoms have been pretty hostile for a while now. You see it in franchises like Star Wars or Marvel and DC, everyone is starting to gatekeep their favorite forms of media. Obviously, we wouldn’t say Sword and Shield started that, but it was one of the franchises that could start fights with relatively little effort from either side.
Then the Games Came Out
So…what happened when Pokemon Sword and Shield came out?
Honestly, it felt like a lot of the negative reception either disappeared or stayed in their own little corner of the internet. We already talked about how the two games sold well, but most fans were fairly positive about the new Pokemon designs and fun characters. Team Shout won’t be anyone’s favorite “villain” team or anything like that, but characters like Marley and Hop are still pretty well-liked.
I went from cowering in fear when looking for news on social media to being pleasantly surprised at the lack of offensive tweets. It felt like the war was over.
Gameplay-wise, this sure was a Pokemon game, alright. You catch the monsters, train them, evolve them, and then win the Pokemon League with them. This felt like a standard release for the franchise, one that wouldn’t innovate gameplay-wise, but was satisfying enough to complete. It was safe, and most fans were okay with that since they were the first mainline entries for Nintendo Switch, as the Let’s Go games are seen as spinoffs.
In the end, it feels like Pokemon fans got worked up over nothing. Maybe they realized this franchise wasn’t for them. Or maybe they accepted that their favorite Pokemon would eventually get included. Whatever the case, Sword and Shield are now less hated than they were at launch, with fans enjoying their simple graphics and solid gameplay.
Compare that to the reception of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, both of which got obliterated by fans for their poor performance and ugly visuals, and it feels like fans never truly hated Sword and Shield. They still sold well, though…
Personally, I like both games enough and think they're a great gateway to the world of Pokemon. I prefer Scarlet and Violet for the risks they took, but Sword and Shield are far from bad games.
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