The Isle of Armor DLC for Pokémon Sword & Shield is now available and many fans have been left underwhelmed. The expansion has some interesting elements, like the new Wild Area and Restricted Sparring battles, but there also isn't much in the way of new content. The Pokémon that have been added to the game can be traded to Pokémon Sword & Shield without needing to buy the Expansion Pass through Pokémon Home and the new story mode can be finished in a few short hours.
It's not possible to buy the Isle of Armor on its own, as it can only be accessed by purchasing the Expansion Pass. This will also give players access to a second expansion called The Crown Tundra, which is set to be released this autumn. Nintendo has been embracing DLC passes during the Switch generation and there have been times when some parts of the expansion have been better than others. This was the case with Luigi's Mansion 3 multiplayer DLC, which had an excellent first pack and a disappointing second pack. It's possible that The Crown Tundra will make up for the Isle of Armor's shortcomings and make it worth the $30 cost of the Expansion Pass.
A Much Longer Story
It's possible to breeze through the Isle of Armor story in a few hours, especially if the player has already completed the base game and has a team of strong Pokémon that they have already grown attached to in the Galar region. It feels as if Game Freak really half-assed the story in the Isle of Armor and put more focus on the Wild Area. The story in the Isle of Armor mostly consists of busy work and brief periods of being forced to use Kubfu in short single-battles. The steady progression of the base game is gone and the DLC feels more like wandering around than working to become a better Trainer.
The Crown Tundra needs to give the player a much longer story. If the intention is to make players invested in the land and its people, then they need to spend time with them. We know that the player will join an expedition team in The Crown Tundra and this could give the player lots of scope to visit dungeons, fight enemy trainers, and defeat powerful Dynamax Legendary Pokémon. The enemy trainers part is important, as the Isle of Armor felt especially barren in this regard.
Less Busywork & More Purpose For Catching Pokémon
A big part of determining how much value the player will get out of the Isle of Armor expansion depends on how much they love hunting for Diglett. The Alolan Diglett hunt was fun, but it's obvious that it was added to lengthen the runtime, especially as the rewards for finding them aren't that impressive. The Diglett hunt would have been fine if there was more to do on the isle, but the lack of content makes it feel like padding.
The bulk of the Isle of Armor experience is taken up by finding the returning Pokémon in the new Wild Area, but even this doesn't take long to complete, considering how few Pokémon have been added to the game. The Crown Tundra should tie its new quests into finding specific returning Pokémon, in a similar manner to the Digimon titles. The hunt for specific Pokémon would be a lot more enjoyable if there was a tangible reward in the game world, especially if those Pokémon were especially hard to catch. This hunt would be made even more exciting by preventing traded Pokémon from counting towards the reward, meaning that players would have to go out into the wild and catch it themselves. Catching new Pokémon in the Isle of Armor was fun, but the small number of returning Pokémon meant that the time in the new Wild Area was over too soon. The Crown Tundra has the chance to improve this formula, especially if a similar number of Pokémon are returning to the game.
Make It A True Post-Game Experience
There were reports that the Isle of Armor DLC would scale its enemies to the level of the player's team, but these turned out to be untrue. One of the biggest issues with the Isle of Armor is tied to the fact that it can be played at any time. It's possible to visit the isle as soon as the player reaches the Wild Area for the first time in the Galar region. As such, Game Freak made the effort to allow people to tackle it from any point in the story, which led to huge inconsistencies in the difficulty of wild Pokémon and enemy trainers.
For The Crown Tundra, the developers should focus on turning it into a post-game campaign, with the expectation that the player has already defeated Leon before traveling to the new area. Pokémon Sword & Shield will have been released for around a year by the time The Crown Tundra is available, so there is plenty of time for people to have finished the base game without leaving many players behind. We know that The Crown Tundra is focusing on Legendary & Mythical Pokémon, so there is already an expectation that it will offer more challenging battles than the Isle of Armor.
The Pokémon fans have wanted a hard mode in the mainline games for years, but Game Freak has always been resistant to the idea. The Crown Tundra has the chance to test this idea out without alienating the younger demographic that Game Freak is targeting. Barring access to The Crown Tundra until the player has reached the end of Pokémon Sword & Shield's story will prevent people from wandering into an area that is too hard for them to complete, and it will give players who have been with the game since launch a true challenge for the team they have spent so much time with.
The Crown Tundra expansion will be released for Pokémon Sword & Shield sometime in fall 2020.