Pokemon Director Junichi Masuda Intends to Step Down for Younger Leadership

Pokémon is one of the world's most well-known video game franchises. Though what many may not have known is about the game's director and composer, Junichi Masuda. But according to a recent interview, he may not be keeping the position for too long.

Masuda took part in a conversation on the official Pokémon website. In this, he talks about his time with the latest Pokémon game, Let's Go: Pikachu and Let's Go: Eevee. He spoke about the modern technology the game has available to it, as well as the idea of stepping down in favor of younger leadership.

"It's important to have the younger generation at Game Freak take over the development of Pokémon as a series. I do believe this will probably be, in terms of the main Pokémon RPGs, the last time that I work as the director."

Masuda has been director of Pokémon since the second generation (Pokémon Gold and Silver, 1999). He has also been the franchise's composer ever since the first set of games, Pokémon Red and Blue. Since then, he's had an influential role on many Pokémon titles up until Pokémon Sun and Moon, the most recent generation. Instead, he took a producer role.

His name is a familiar one in the Pokémon community, especially to those hunting for shiny Pokémon, a rare, alternate colored Pokémon. This is because of a method of "shiny hunting" known as the Masuda Method. This is where players focus on hatching Pokémon from two international parents. This specific set of circumstances resulted in a 5x greater chance of hatching a shiny variant. It was named after him after he blogged about implementing it into the fourth generation of games.

Pokémon won't be the same without Masuda, for sure. All the same, we wish the best for him in whichever role he takes in the future.