Pokemon Sword & Shield's Characters Use British English

As you may know by now, Pokemon Sword and Shield take place in a new region called Galar, which is clearly inspired by the United Kingdom. There is a Big Ben-like clock tower, charming countryside and cottages, trains and old-looking brick buildings in the cities, and soccer/football-inspired stadiums for battling Pokemon. We recently played a 90-minute demo of Sword and Shield, and we can confirm that on top of all the other similarities, the characters have British accents.

Well, to be precise, they use British slang, since dialogue in Sword and Shield is text-only. But it is very clearly British. Your mom, a mainstay of every Pokemon game ever? She's called Mum. Your rival describes someone as being "pants with directions." Another character refers to a Pokemon as a "little chap." The list goes on. And, at least from an American perspective, it's pretty on-point. It remains to be seen whether my British colleagues will agree.

The demo showcased the first few areas of Sword and Shield, including the Wild Area. As we've seen in trailers thus far, the countryside is as idyllic as a British postcard, with wild Wooloo--a lovely little sheep-like Pokemon--roaming around causing all sorts of trouble. Compared to previous Pokemon games, the vistas are especially lovely, and the recent 3D art style of the series makes the transition to Switch beautifully from what we played.

During the demo, we also learned that the Pokemon-catching tutorial is skippable for the first time in almost 20 years. On top of that, choosing your starter is more emotional than we're used to. We'll know more once Pokemon Sword and Shield come to Nintendo Switch on November 15.