It’s no secret that the Pokemon games base their regions off of real world places. The first few game regions were all set on various regions in Japan so western audiences may not have been as familiar with the looks of the regions, but once we get to Unova, based off of New York state, or Kalos, based off of France it has become much more obvious. So everyone is excitedly trying to figure out what Pokemon Sword and Shields Galar region’s real world equivalent is. There seems to be one guess that stands out above any of the others. Galar is based on the UK.
There are a lot of environmental clues from the Pokemon Direct. Galar has lots of rolling countrysides, deep haunting woods, and a large red-brick city featuring what looks to be a classic British looking clock tower, and of course lots of trains.
Even the map is very reminiscent of Great Britain, it’s a long narrow island region. On the map in the top most Large city, Presumably based off London, although it’s placed at the top of the map instead of the bottom, you can see key features central to the look of the city. Westminster Palace, including Big Ben, and a circular attraction near by that looks very much like the eye of London, the famous Ferris Wheel.
The city in the middle, From the image above, is likely based off of Manchester. The rocky region to the west could be a reference to the region of Wales. The Mountains in the north of the map, as Scotland. We’re all excited to see what kind of gyms and trainers we’ll meet in a region based off the UK.
Wherever Pokemon Sword and Shield end up taking us, we’re in for another wild adventure. These games will be releasing world wide in 2019, only on the Nintendo Switch.
