Ohmori: Game Freak Isn’t A Company That Is Purely Japanese

Today we have more interesting details to share with you about Game Freak, the studio that works on the mainline Pokemon games.

In an interview with Gamer Taiwan, Pokemon Sword and Shield director Shigeru Ohmori was asked about the cultural impact Game Freak employees from overseas had on the development of games. Ohmori revealed that Game Freak isn’t a company that only has Japanese members, as there are a lot of members from Asia.

Check out their full comments as translated by NintendoSoup:

Gamer: Previously, it was announced in a Pokemon Direct that the art director for Pokemon Sword and Shield is James Turner, who designed the Pokemon Doduo. Was there any kind of cultural impact from Game Freak employees born outside Japan?

Ohmori: James has been involved in design and development since Pokemon Black/White. His Japanese is very fluent, so we don’t really consider him as a foreigner (laughs). However, because he’s an Englishman, this time we consider him a “goalkeeper” who helps us judge whether a Pokemon design has a “British feeling”. For example, he could suggest for a room to have a lot more small decorations, which is similar to homes in the UK. He also gave feedback on the Pokemon Center, where we had to replace the automatic door to give it a more “British feel”.

In addition, our current development team has a lot of members from Asia. I feel our team is very international. I think it is because of such a team that we can make a game widely accepted by players worldwide.

What do you think?