Previews for Pokémon Pokopia have dropped today, including our own, and most of them are pretty positive, getting us very excited for the upcoming building life-sim on Switch 2. And, according to Takuto Edagawa, the game’s director, it sounds like we’ll be spending a lot of time rebuilding this abandoned island with our Pokémon.

In an interview with IGN, Edagawa — who works at Koei Tecmo and previously worked on Dragon Quest Builders 2 and directed the Monster Hunter-like Wild Hearts — said that the main aim of the game “is typically not to go to the end roll”, meaning the credits.

“The whole concept is to create the world with Pokémon and live with the Pokémon. However, as an average, it’ll be about 20 to 40 hours, but it would really depend on how the players play the game”, he told the outlet.

That makes it sound like a pretty chunky game, even if you just focus on the main stuff. And for reference, the Dragon Quest Builders games, which Pokopia seems to be closely-aligned with, are a little longer at 40-50+ hours.

And, as you probably expect from a game like Pokopia, there’s a lot more to do than just “roll credits”, which Edagawa confirms: “There’s more things to experience after the end roll… I believe that players are encouraged to and will be motivated to continue to play the game.”

Unsurprising stuff, but that confirms we’ll be booking out our March to sit down and thoroughly dedicate ourselves to island rebuilding and repopulating.

When our very own Ollie Reynolds got to play Pokopia, he came away extremely surprised and impressed, and for cosy gamers, he had this to say: “I get the feeling that it’s going to scratch an itch for anyone disappointed that we probably won’t be getting a brand new Animal Crossing anytime soon.”

Are you excited for Pokémon Pokopia on 5th March? Catch us in the comments and let us know.