Pokémon Resonant Crystal Is Taking Players Back To Johto

Nairavoice | Oct 26, 2026 4h ago 55 0 3 min read

Pokémon Resonant Crystal Is Taking Players Back To Johto

The Pokémon series is obviously having one of the more important moments in its history in 2026, as the community gets together to celebrate 30 years since its introduction to fans. The TCG has obviously received a lot of the attention, leaving video game fans without new options for the time being (though they did get the announcement that new entries Winds and Waves are set to drop next year).

While we all wait for that, one of the best things to do is head back to the older games that defined our childhoods, catching everything available and hunting down those elusive shinies. Even better than that, fans have released hundreds of projects in recent years that otherwise change or update those games to make them more exciting and playable for an audience in 2026.

These fan-made projects are now a huge part of Pokémon’s overall offering, and a new release could be set to push that legacy even further forward.

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Over on Twitter/X, an official profile shared the news that Pokémon Resonant Crystal is currently in development. Built as a full fan-made remake of the world of HeartGold and SoulSilver, the story actually comes from the earlier Pokémon Crystal (as the name would suggest).

This is a bit of a genius combination because the plan is to retain all the quality-of-life updates, expanded Pokédex, and features of HG/SS, all of which make them a lot more playable than the earliest games in the series. The developer has also confirmed that they are planning to add plenty of additional quality-of-life features of their own, in time.

In terms of the story, though HG/SS has many elements of the story from the original Crystal, there are some changes, and not all of those were for the better. Some of the events are pushed into the postgame in the later releases, but it sounds like the developer is going to follow the timeline and format of Crystal, for the most part.

Even better than that, the whole thing is built inside the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl engine, which is one of the best happy mediums between the overall aesthetic of the older games, with newer visuals that prevent it all from being jarring to return to.

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The Johto renaissance in fan games has been really brilliant to see, and fans are very excited about getting to play this latest effort, as many shared over on Reddit. “This looks great, I hope they address the level scaling and encounters. Those were my biggest gripes with HG for sure,” one comment read.

There hasn’t been any indication from the developer about when they plan to release the new game, but it seems like it’s very early in development, and we’ll have a little while to wait before we get to see any more of it. Happily, there are plenty of other Pokémon options out there to fill the time, so we shouldn’t find ourselves too bored in the intervening period all being well.