Leak: Pokemon Crimson grants us so much freedom on one point that it’s pointless

In Pokémon Crimson and Crimson, an open game world awaits us, which we can explore for the first time either completely alone or with up to three other people. We are not given a fixed path, we are completely free to decide which areas we want to explore first. So lots of freedom to approach the game the way we want.

At least in theory, because according to a new leak, the game will probably make it pretty clear to us when we should travel where.

Pokemon Gyms that don’t level up

The leak comes again via Twitter from CentroLeaks, which has hit the mark in the past with rumors about the Pokémon series. Specifically, the arenas in the game are freely accessible and we can complete them in any order.

No level scaling: That sounds pretty positive at first, after all we get the freedom to decide when and how we want to visit the arena leaders, but there is a big catch. According to the leak, the arenas should not level with our team strength but have fixed levels:

link to Twitter content

Can that really be true?

This made sense in the past when we were still working through the arenas linearly, but works less with the open-ended exploration approach.

Although there are harder and easier areas in other open world games such as Elden Ring, which serve as a kind of barrier for weak characters, at least the skill level of the players can make a difference. In Pokémon games, this means rather tedious grinding if we want to start with a harder Gym, especially since the lower level Gyms shouldn’t pose a challenge at all after that.

Accordingly, the question naturally arises as to how much sense this feature would make and whether it even ends up in the finished game. Although CentroLeaks is definitely a reliable source, in the past about the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes predicted, but the information may simply be out of date. After all, the leaked version of the game that the people behind CentroLeaks have is not the finished game.

This trailer shows which new features are actually making it to Crimson and Crimson:

3:06

Pokémon Crimson & Crimson – Second trailer reveals co-op mode and new Pokémon

More on Pokémon Crimson and Crimson:

All news and rumours

Most of the information we have so far about Pokémon Crimson and Crimson does not come from Nintendo itself, but from leaks. If you are curious about what else there are rumors about Gen 9, we have an overview of all leaks for you here. If you prefer to jump into officially confirmed information instead, our hub tells you everything you need to know about the release, open world, gameplay and more.

What do you think of the rumor, do you also find the feature questionable, or would you look forward to challenging the hardest Gym Leaders first?