The 30th anniversary of Pokémon has proven to be a real boon for the community as a whole, who have been celebrating everything that makes the franchise so special. A big part of those celebrations has been looking to the future, where we know that Winds and Waves will serve as the first games of the 10th generation.

Though we don’t know exactly what those will bring just yet, it has led to plenty of players returning to older games in the series while they wait to hear more about what’s to come next. Everyone has their own favorite generation from the past, but it’s widely agreed upon that the third generation is one of the strongest we’ve had to date. Though much of that comes down to Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, it’s worth remembering that FireRed and LeafGreen were also really solid in their own right.

Now, one dedicated developer has brought them back in a big way, and it could be one of the most exciting fan releases of the year.

Over on Twitter/X, the user Gongas shared a post detailing Pokémon Evergreen, which is set to launch on January 10, 2027. Starting from a FireRed foundation, the game is essentially an enhancement of the original that makes changes to the story/map, dials up the difficulty, and redoes every map in the game, leaving over 250 fights for the player to conquer across its runtime.

The scale of the ambition on show here is undoubtedly the most impressive thing, and it’s safe to say that everyone in the responses was excited to see what they have been cooking up. The big selling point here is that it is going to be much harder to progress through than the base game, and it might not be the best choice for those who are brand new to the series or prefer playing casually.

That said, the game still uses Gen 3 mechanics and the AI remains largely vanilla (though there have been some improvements), so it should be quite recognizable in that sense if you grew up playing the originals. Other than the release date, we don’t have a ton of information just yet on how the game is going to be made available, though it is worth noting that it will continue the proud tradition of fan games being absolutely free.

The arrival of the above at the start of 2027 should give us plenty to do while we wait to find out exactly what Game Freak’s launch plans are for Winds and Waves. Most estimates are expecting that to arrive during the back half of next year, so we do have almost a year to fill with Pokémon experiences in the meantime.

Released

September 7, 2004

ESRB

Everyone 10+ / Mild Fantasy Violence, Simulated Gambling

Developer(s)

Game Freak

Publisher(s)

The Pokemon Company, Nintendo

Multiplayer

Local Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer

Number of Players

Single-player