Pokémon’s competitive game retains its irresistible pull. It’s strong enough to ensure that Sword & Shield has sustained a reasonably healthy online community, despite a postgame that otherwise offers slim pickings. Game Freak has relied upon players caring enough about Gigantamax Pokémon to want to dive back in for sporadic time-limited raids.
The first expansion of a two-part season pass comes at a good time, then. The Isle Of Armor does away with routes and towns, focusing on a more open and topographically diverse version of the oddly contained and visually dull Wild Area. It suggests Game Freak has picked up some tips from the sandboxes of Xenoblade Chronicles and Breath Of The Wild - it even gets its own Korok Seed collectathon equivalent, as you’re asked to find 150 Alolan Diglett scattered across the Isle’s biomes. Yet it’s hardly an aesthetic match for either, nor does it boast the same volume or variety of asides.