Placing the Sword/Shield trailer scenes on the Galar map

The latest Pokemon Direct just aired, and with it they also put together a 3-minute trailer that quickly cuts through a bunch of different scenes. I plan on writing extensively about many new announcements, but I wanted to first go with an overview analysis of the trailer and its many short cuts.

A lot was shown in the short timespan, and I want to unpack it by showing you where each scene took place on the Galar map.

The trailer opens up on this train station, which you can see is your starting town. You can get a better look, where the train is starting to depart.

The trailer cuts quickly to this steampunk town at night, showing that the day/night cycle will return.

You can see the gym prominently located at the end of this road. There is some sort of advertisement on the sign, which resembles a Vigoroth, and a few shops.

We can also see three tiers of water fountains, allowing both humans and Pokemon to drink.

Here is the large city with the dragon entrance. In 3D it’s visually intimidating.

This rival battle with takes place on the battlefield near what may be their childhood home.

The player is approaching Professor Magnolia’s lab.

These large Diglett monuments are present outside this cliffside city. They’re very eerie.

This is another look at the steampunk city, where you can see the player carefully going down a flight of stairs.

In this scene, the player encounters an unknown Pokemon hidden in tall grass.

Although their location cannot be placed immediately, the encounter itself uses the starting town as the backdrop, so it’s likely they are somewhere nearby, perhaps on the way to the laboratory.

One of the trainer encounters take place here, which you can see is near the Grass gym.

This trainer encounter takes place on what looks to be a generic route. Aside from the sign and the trees, there’s not much indication of where this may take place. Given its location in the trailer, chronologically right after the grass gym, and on a West-East route with trees, I guess that it is to the east of that city.

This trainer encounter is in the same colorful cave that we have seen in the previous trailer. Based on the mine tracks leading out of the cave on the map, it is likely to the left of the steampunk city.

This trainer encounter takes place on the small land masses to the east, near the snowy terrain. If you look closely at the map, this could be the left-most piece of land.

This cinematic introduction to the Wild Area takes place to east of the steampunk city, with its connecting bridge in view. You can also see the castle city in the background.

This scene seems to be a bit further, as you can see the two smaller bridges in the background. However if you look closer, you can see the steel bridge in the far background and the large steampunk tower peaking up over the cliff.

This seems to be an example of the controllable camera system, as the player seems to be facing south.

This seems to be a closer approach, with the northernmost bridge closer and the camera angled towards the steampunk city. This seems to be the same grass as before, but appears to be dried and yellow.

I want to jump slightly ahead in the trailer to add this screenshot of what is basically the same area at sunset.

Also, the weather will change dynamically, making this the same spot where there is a sandstorm based on this screenshot.

Here, we seem to be in a part of the wild area further south, with the steel bridge and the steampunk city close in view. More specifically, you’re probably near this large rock.

This spooky night scene, with Golurk and ghost Pokemon, is at this ruined tower in the northern part of the wild area.

In this watery area you can see a few Pokemon swimming. Based on the bridge to the right, I can place it near the steampunk city.

Here there is a Butterfree, Bounsweet, and Stufful in an area near a lake with an island in the middle.

Here you can see the steampunk city and the bridges with a clear view.

This scene shows off rain that will dynamically appear, and takes place just north of the steampunk city.

Here is a Tyranitar in the northern area, not too far from where Rhydon was walking before. You can see the dead trees around you, and the rocks to the right. It’s likely this will be the only part of the wild area that will have sandstorms. You can see one of the trees on the left fading away as it moves out of the camera’s view.

Based on this picture, which has a group of stones pointed outward, I’m not positive where this might be on the map. However, I think it is related to this stone formation near the wall in the northern part of the wild area.

Here the player is biking in a similar area to previous, to the north of the bridges and the steampunk city.

Here the trainer is cycling in the lake near the castle city as Pokemon jump out.

This is also the lake that the player then fishes at, and you can see the steampunk city in the background. The camera has been rotated to point south, like before.

You can see the player shaking the berry tree near the ruined tower where Golurk was roaming before. You can also see a bridge in the background, indicating that there may be more bridges here than I originally suspected based on analyzing the map.

The player whistles to get the attention of two Pokemon near the lake island.

Our first look at the raid mechanic shows beams of red light coming out in an area near the castle city entrance.

This is another scene, further away, with that city in the distance.

This looks to be an area in the center of the wild area, around the lakes, but I can’t perfectly place it.

This is in the same spot where Avalugg was earlier, with the pointed rocks creating a clearing.

After a demonstration of a raid, there is a cinematic look at the Grass-type gym, presumably the first gym you’ll visit.

This was a thorough look in the trailer to match up each scene to a location on the map. I can’t guarantee the in-game accuracy of the map, but I believe I did as much as I could.

As there are still many months before the game’s release, they did spend their time focused on the southern part of the region. We still don’t know a lot about the other areas, which will probably be revealed at a later date. The most interesting place yet to be revealed is the northern metropolis.