Beast of Reincarnation Unlocks This Week, and Game Freak's First Big Swing Beyond Pokemon Is Day One on Game Pass

Game Freak has spent three decades being known as the Pokemon studio, and this week it ships its biggest argument yet that it can be something else too. Beast of Reincarnation, the studio's original post-apocalyptic action RPG published under the Fictions label, unlocks worldwide on August 4 at 00:00 UTC on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC through Steam and the Microsoft Store. That UTC timing means players in the Americas actually get in on Monday evening, August 3, while Europe unlocks in the early hours of Tuesday and Japan, the rest of East Asia and Oceania start Tuesday morning.

The standard edition costs 59.99 dollars on Steam, but a lot of people will not pay anything at all. The game arrives day one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, playable on console, PC, cloud and handhelds, exactly as promised in the stacked July Game Pass wave that also delivered Halo: Campaign Evolved. Preloads are already live on Steam for anyone who pre-ordered, so the download can be finished before the unlock hits.

Video: Fictions on YouTube

One person, one dog, and a very different Game Freak

The setup has nothing to do with creature collecting. Beast of Reincarnation is set in a far-future Japan consumed by a corruption called the Blight, and you play Emma, an outcast Sealer who travels the ruined country with her dog Koo. Game Freak itself describes it as a one-person, one-dog action RPG, and the bond between the two is the mechanical core of the game, not just a story hook. Koo fights alongside you, and your options grow as the relationship deepens across the journey.

Combat is the part we find most interesting on paper. Instead of picking a lane, Game Freak built a hybrid of real-time swordplay and command-based tactics, layered with the flashy Bloom Arts techniques the publisher showed off in its combat overview earlier this month. Skill trees and gear are customizable, so the studio is clearly aiming at players who want more decision making than a typical character action game offers. Whether all of that clicks together is the open question, because this is unproven territory for a team that has spent most of its history iterating on one formula.

Our take

We would love to tell you whether it is good, but as we write this there are no reviews out, and a brand new IP from a studio stepping outside its comfort zone can land anywhere. That is exactly why the Game Pass arrangement matters. If you subscribe, trying Game Freak's weirdest, most ambitious project in decades costs you nothing but a download, and that is the kind of bet subscriptions were supposed to enable. We know what we are doing Monday evening.