On August 4, Game Freak, a studio associated exclusively with Pokémon for 30 years, released its first major game outside of this franchise — the post-apocalyptic action-RPG Beast of Reincarnation. Critics differed in their opinions, but agreed on one thing: the result was not at all what was expected from the studio.
- Thirty years — and not a single game without Pokemon
- The girl, the plague-ridden dog and the end of the world
- How the battle works: action for the heroine, “Pokemon” logic for the pet
- Critics' ratings: range from five to nine and a half
- How the game behaves on PC
- How much does it cost and where is it available
- What's next
Thirty years — and not a single game without Pokemon
Game Freak is not just a developer of Pokémon, but a studio whose identity is so fused with this brand that for most gamers the company name automatically means pocket monsters. Over nearly 36 years of existence, the studio has released other projects, but all of them remained niche, inconspicuous against the backdrop of the main franchise, reminds xrust. So when, in 2023, Game Freak announced a big-budget action-RPG without a single Pokemon under the code name Project Bloom, the industry's reaction fluctuated between curiosity and skepticism: could a studio that had been making compact turn-based games for three decades be able to handle the production level of a modern AAA project?
The idea was born within the Gear Project program, Game Freak's internal incubator that allows employees to develop concepts outside of Pokémon. It was written and directed by Kota Furushima, who previously worked on battle planning and interfaces in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, as well as sound design in Legends: Arceus. By his own admission, a relatively small internal team worked on the game, which coordinated the work of a whole network of external studio contractors — this is how Game Freak compensated for the lack of experience in developing projects of this scale.
The publisher was Fictions, a former Private Division label of Take-Two Interactive, sold in 2024 to Texas private equity fund Haveli Investments and subsequently renamed.
The girl, the plague-ridden dog and the end of the world
Events take place in Japan in 4026: civilization is almost destroyed by a mystical corruption called Blythe, which has turned the world into overgrown ruins. The main character, 18-year-old “Print Girl” Emma, is herself infected with this corruption, as is her companion Ku, the wolf-like Shiba Inu. The two set out to destroy the titular Beast of Rebirth, the cyclical divine force behind the planet's disintegration.
The studio's signature style is immediately noticeable in the plot: the partnership between man and creature, which Game Freak honed for three decades using the example of trainers and Pokemon, here turned into the emotional connection between Emma and Ku. It is this line that reviewers single out almost unanimously, regardless of the final rating of the game.
How the battle works: action for the heroine, “Pokemon” logic for the pet
The main mechanical discovery of the game is its two-level combat system. Emma herself fights in real time, with an emphasis on parries: successful blocks and dodges fill a special “weave scale”, which can be spent on slowing down time, special attacks or enhancing Ku’s abilities. But the pet is controlled through a separate step-by-step menu of commands — outwardly noticeably reminiscent of the battle interface in Pokémon, which Furushima himself confirmed in one of the pre-release interviews, describing the concept as an attempt to convey “that emotional feeling that arises when contacting creative works.”
The scheme turned out to be closed: the better you parry as Emma, the more resources go to Ku’s more powerful techniques. Critics who liked the pace responded enthusiastically. Vice gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, calling the combat the perfect mix of action. GamesRadar gave it a 9 out of 10, citing a tight but fair balance of difficulty and plenty of scope for creating your own playstyle.
Those who did not like the system complained about the gap between the potential of the mechanics and its implementation in practice. PC Gamer reviewer Sean Prescott, who gave the game a 73 out of 100, noted that the design of ordinary non-boss encounters often turns out to be downright boring: enemies are placed on the maps too sparsely, and death costs almost nothing — there are a lot of checkpoint fires, items are not lost upon death, which is why the tension in ordinary battles disappears. Giant Bomb (3.5 out of 5) described the game as ultimately fun, but stumbling over it «many, many times» before getting to the truly interesting parts.
Almost all reviewers agree that the battle is revealed precisely on the bosses — where Emma’s bow, her hair-lash, which works both as a means of transportation and as a weapon, and Ku’s techniques converge into truly spectacular scenes.
Critics' ratings: range from five to nine and a half
On the OpenCritic aggregator, based on 45 reviews, the game scored 76 points out of 100 (status “Strong”), on Metacritic — 73 points based on 49 reviews of the PS5 version. The range of individual ratings is impressive: from 5 out of 10 for GameRant to 9.5 out of 10 for Vice. VGC gave it a modest 6 points, but still called the game «the best non-Pokemon game» the studio has ever made, and directly called for a sequel. Eurogamer (also 6 points) described the result as chaotic in places, but with a «surprising amount of heart» and exciting combat.
Critics name almost the same weak points: the plot unfolds too slowly, the lore is presented unclearly, and there are frankly not enough ordinary opponents on the maps — the impression is that the game is only half “revealed.” Furushima, in an interview with Japanese publication DenFamiNicoGamer, acknowledged that the game's photorealistic graphics didn't quite fit into the studio's usual style, but insisted that this visual approach best conveyed what he wanted to express — a deliberate departure from the recognizable stylized aesthetics of Pokémon in favor of a new concept.
How the game behaves on PC
This is where the release has the most problems. At launch, the PC version does not preload shaders in the main menu, which is why noticeable stuttering occurs when new visual effects appear in combat or cutscenes. The publisher released a day one patch with a volume of about 32 GB, but even after it, some players on equipment near the recommended system requirements continued to complain about frame rate drops. The same PC Gamer reviewer, who tested the game on an RTX 3060 laptop with a Ryzen 5 5600H and 16 GB of memory — a configuration slightly below the recommended one — recorded frequent drops below 60 frames per second, even on medium settings with FSR 3 enabled.
class=»notranslate»>__GTAG1__ The community has already developed temporary recipes: reduce volumetric fog, global illumination and fur physics, use DLSS or FSR upscaling instead of native TAA, install the game on an SSD. Compatibility with Steam Deck is officially marked as “unknown”, and due to hardware requirements, a portable console is unlikely to run the game comfortably. On the day of release, some buyers encountered a separate technical problem — a glitch on Steam delayed the unlocking of the game after purchase for about six hours.
User reviews on Steam at launch reflect this diversity: Of the more than 700 English-language reviews, about 52% were positive — a small sample, but one that fits well into the overall picture of a game that pleases some players with atmosphere and combat, while disappointing others with half-baked storytelling and technical flaws.
How much does it cost and where is it available
class=»notranslate»>__GTAG5__ The game was released simultaneously on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC at a price of $59.99 — that’s about 4,900 rubles at the current exchange rate, although this figure does not directly reflect official sales in Russia. The game is available to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers at no additional cost; lower subscription levels, Essential and Premium, do not have access.
What's next
For Game Freak, the result looks more like a promising start than an unqualified triumph: the first major original IP in the studio's 36-year history has received solid but not rave reviews, showcased a combat system with real original ideas, and has already drawn comparisons to Sekiro, NieR: Automata and Horizon Zero Dawn in dozens of reviews. Whether a sequel is built on this foundation — and several publications are openly asking for this — will determine whether Beast of Reincarnation will go down in history as a promising beginning or as a complete statement from the studio.
Sources:
pcgamer.com
techtimes.com
wccftech.com
Xrust The creators of Pokémon released the first game without Pokémon
