Is Pokémon Legends Arceus actually a fully open world?

This January, Game Freak is launching a new Pokémon game that is a little different to the mainline RPGs that we've come to expect. Called Pokémon Legends Arceus, the game is set hundreds of years before the main RPGs and seems to feature real-time combat and even new variants of the pocket monsters known as Noble Pokémon, to make for an experience that a lot of people compared to Breath of the Wild when it was announced.

It also looked like the game was delivering a full open world originally, however now Serebii.net's Joe Merrick pointed out that this might not be the case, and that the game instead seemingly uses segmented sections like what we commonly see in Monster Hunter games.

In the tweet, Merrick stated, "It is coming increasingly clear that Pokémon Legends Arceus may not be full open world but rather segmented open areas like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Monster Hunter etc. separated into different areas like the Wild Area/Crown Tundra did".

To build on this, the game's official website also notes in the completing the Pokédex section that "Completing these research tasks will also contribute to your work with the Galaxy Expedition Team and raise your rank as a team member, granting you access to new areas." Which does seem to suggest that we'll get a segmented open world rather than one massive open world to explore.

As for when Pokémon Legends Arceus will land, the game is set to launch exclusively on Nintendo Switch on January 28, 2022.