Inverse - 🎮 The future of Pokémon

Friday

Nov 18 2022

🎶 🎶 🎶 I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test. To train them is my cause. I will travel across the land, searching far and wide. Teach Pokémon to understand the power that's inside.

Pokémon, it's you and me. I know it's my destiny. Oh, you're my best friend. In a world we must defend. A heart so true. Our courage will pull us through. You teach me and I'll teach you. Pokémon!

Gotta catch 'em all. Yeah! 🎶 🎶 🎶

What's New

Feature

Gaming

The future of Pokémon: 5 experts on VR, open worlds, and remakes

Pokémon is always evolving, but the beloved franchise’s next evolution is even more impressive than Charmeleon’s transformation into Charizard. (Well… almost.) Pokémon Scarlet and Violet — which kick off the ninth generation of Pokémon games, out today for the Nintendo Switch — mark some of the biggest changes to the core RPG games’ format in their 26-year history.

But what comes next? How much can Pokémon reinvent and reimagine its properties — the video games, but also its TV series, movies, merch, and trading card game — to surprise and delight fans who grew up with Ash and Pikachu?

To find out, Inverse spoke with five people whose lives and careers are deeply intertwined with the Pokémon community to discover, in their own words, what they want to see going forward. Whether they’re a streamer, a competitive battler, or even the longtime voice of Ash Ketchum, they’re all unique experts who want to see the franchise become the very best — like no one ever was.

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BLAST OFF!

Science

Artemis II and beyond: 3 steps NASA needs to take to send astronauts to the Moon

Artemis I may be off to the Moon, but it didn’t come without its share of stumbles. NASA needs to iron-out some critical elements to its Artemis Program for it to succeed from here out, says a report from a major oversight agency.

Some wonder if Artemis will pick up the Apollo baton, or fall short of its lofty goals. If Artemis I achieves its goals from now until the end of its mission, it will springboard the rest of the Artemis Program, which seeks to return humans to the Moon, with crewed lunar voyages that would last weeks or months. It also wants to place humans on Mars.

This expensive undertaking ($50 billion so far) easily meets the fiscal threshold to warrant analysis from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report, published in September, provides a glimpse into the stumbles up to that date — and what the program needs to see human boots put on the Moon for the Artemis III mission, tentatively slated for 2025.

Inverse Interview

Entertainment

Star Wars legend Warwick Davis is ready to return to the franchise

It’s been 34 years since we’ve seen Willow Ufgood defeat the evil queen Bavmorda and save the sweet redheaded baby Elora Danan from being banished to the Netherworld.

Warwick Davis, who played the title Nelwyn sorcerer and hero of Tir Asleen in Willow, never expected that he’d be back in the medieval digs he wore on set as a fresh-faced 17-year-old. Fast-forward from 1988 to 2022, and Davis is headed back to the Mother World, along with both an ensemble cast new to the budding franchise and some familiar faces from the original movie.

Davis tells Inverse that his callback to Willow’s realm of magic, monsters, and mischief wasn’t a recent surprise. The episodic series had, in fact, been brewed on the set of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Ancient History

Science

A 2000-year-old artifact rewrites what we know about one of Europe’s most mysterious languages

Artifact restorer Carmen Usúa didn’t expect to rewrite linguistic history when she started cleaning mud off a hand-shaped bronze ornament from an Iron Age village back in January.

“When I started cleaning, I found a series of lines and then a series of dots,” says Usúa in a statement. “I immediately realized that I was in front of a piece with writing.”

That small piece of writing — just 40 characters — reveals a hidden chapter in the story of a language whose origins are still unknown: Basque, whose native speakers live in what’s now northern Spain and southwestern France. Basque is what linguists call an isolate, meaning it doesn’t share roots with other known language groups.

Until recently, historians thought that Basque speakers didn’t develop a written language until their contact with Romans who invaded their lands, but the bronze hand reveals that by the time the Romans arrived, the Basques already had their own system of writing, developed from a system used more widely across the Iberian peninsula.

MIGHTY CELLS

Mind and Body

These CRISPR-edited T cells could be the future of cancer therapy

CRISPR, the powerful yet easy-to-use gene editing tool, has become a versatile technology that’s poised to revolutionize everything from agriculture to cancer treatment. Now, a new study out in Nature last week suggests we might be one step closer to using CRISPR to squash cancer cells for good.

CRISPR’s power lies in its ability to precisely snip out genes we don’t want and replace them with ones we do. In recent years, scientists have been harnessing this skill to tweak a component of our immune systems — known as T cells — to help them fight cancer more effectively.

Researchers at the San Franciso-based biotech company PACT Pharma and UCLA have found that not only are CRISPR-edited T cells safe but likely potent in annihilating cancer. The team published the results of a small-scale phase 1 clinical trial where 16 patients were infused with a custom blend of CRISPR-engineered T cells to spot cancer cells and destroy them.

Inverse - 🎮 The future of Pokémon

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