Developer Game Freak has been known to dabble in projects outside of the Pokémon franchise, producing the likes of the excellent Pocket Card Jockey and Little Town Hero, and now it’s just launched a new mobile game called Pand Land (thanks, Siliconera). If you remember, the company filed trademarks for the title at the start of the year, but we weren’t too sure what it was all about at the time.
Although there’s no word on a worldside release at the time of writing, Pand Land is available via Android and iOS in Japan. Described as a casual marine adventure RPG, you travel the lands with your crew to collect various bits of treasure. Boasting some rather charming voxel-based visuals, you’ll also explore dangerous dungeons and can tackle the game either on your own or with friends.
Speaking via the official announcement from collaborator Wonder Planet, Yuji Saito, Director of Development 1 at Game Freak, stated, “We’ve been working hard to create a game that takes the scale of a console game and makes it easy and simple to play. It was a difficult challenge for us alone, but by borrowing the help of Wonder Planet, which has a proven track record in mobile games, we were able to make this announcement.”
It looks like quite the departure from what we’re used to seeing from Game Freak, but then the studio has always proven its chops when it’s not bogged down by the Pokémon franchise. Hopefully, Pand Land will get a worldwide release in the near future – we’d love to try it out.
