It’s fair to wonder at tome point during every video game franchise’s life how much longer it has. This is true of every single franchise period. The Fast and Furious franchise has somehow lasted for two full decades, but it’s going to end soon. The GTA franchise has lasted longer than that, but eventually it will end. Most franchises do, at least the ones that run chronologically and have sequels rather than just games with the same characters (looking at you, Mario franchise).
Pokémon, however, is a rare breed. It’s been out since 1996 so it’s fair to wonder whether or not the game will end sometime soon, especially after the release of the ninth generation of mainline games. There’s good reason to think it might not ever end, though. Here’s why.
The Pokémon franchise will never end – Here’s why!
Expecting a video game franchise to never end is foolish, as all things eventually come to an end. It might be out of their control, but they do end. Within reason, though, there’s no reason Pokémon ever has to end.
It debuted in 1996 as an anime and video game called Pocket Monsters. Scarlet and Violet‘s release in 2022 signals almost 25 years of activity. The trading card game releasing new sets in 2023 marks a full 25. There’s no end in sight, either. This game is predicated entirely on fictional things. The creatures, like Finizen, Charizard, Swampert, Igglybuff and others, are entirely made up. The regions are entirely made up. The movesets are entirely made up. Everything about it is made up.
1. No limit to making new Pokémon
Since there’s no limit to human creativity and imagination, there’s no limit to what Pokémon creators could do. Every generation, they come up with 100 or so random, entirely made up creatures. They’re largely based on other things (Flapple is an apple, Sinistea is a teacup, Noctowl is an owl and the list goes on) but there are so many different things to base new creatures on.
Sinistea is based on a teacup
They’ve already proven they can do that. There are several different cat Pokémon, and a few more were just added in Generation IX. There are things that don’t have a Pokémon based on them, but even when they run out of existing things, they can simply double back and make more dolphin Pokémon or more turtle Pokémon.
Sure, the designs would probably get weaker as time went on, but does that really matter? People play Pokémon for a lot of reasons, but variety in creatures is pretty low on the list. From now until the end of time, creators have the ability to continuously make new Pokémon for trainers to catch.
2. The Pokémon Company can always use what they have
Even if The Pokémon Company somehow ran out of ideas (a statistical improbability), they can always use what they have. There were 400 entries in the Pokédex for the Paldea region, but at least half or more were found first in older generations.
There are now well over 1,000 Pokémon, and that makes for a lot of combinations. They can continue releasing games set in different places with different combinations of creatures until the end of time.
They can also do what they did with Pokémon Legends Arceus and set everything in a past version of an existing region. The possibilities are pretty much endless.
3. Pokémon is too big to fail
At this point, each iteration of the franchise is massive in its own right. There are people who religiously collect and play the Trading Card Game. Moreover, there are others who plau every single video game released and re-released. There are people who watch every episode of the anime (which is about to pivot away from Ash and will likely continue running for another two decades at least).
Those three versions of this franchise would each be enough to sustain it, but they all exist under the same name. For that reason, it’s reasonable to expect this franchise to never end.
It’s fair to wonder if, after a quarter of a century, a franchise is running out of steam. For Pokémon, it’s quite the contrary. They seem to be just getting started and the franchise might outlive us all.
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