With the new open-world approach in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the linear structure of past entries in the franchise has changed as well. Instead of a single story, you can pursue one of three major questlines: Victory Road, the Path of Legends, and Starfall Street.
Victory Road is the most recognizable and classic quest in Pokemon, as you vie to be the very best (like no one ever was) by conquering regional gym leaders and, presumably, the Elite Four. This time you can pick which order to challenge the gym leaders, though, which means the difficulty balancing may be very different this time. In the one gym challenge we’ve seen, you didn’t even battle a series of NPCs in the gym–instead, you play a brief hide-and-seek game with some Pokemon and then challenge the gym leader 1-on-1. This could mean that gyms are more based around themed activities, rather than battle gauntlets, much like the trials of Pokémon Sun and Moon.
The Path of Legends revolves around researching gargantuan Pokemon known as Titans. There are a set number of these massive Pokemon roaming about, and you’ll need to follow the clues to track them down and beat them in battle for research purposes. This may be the path we know the least about, because even in our hands-on preview we were restricted from seeing the conclusion of the battle against a gigantic Klawf.
Finally, Starfall Street is the new way of challenging the new antagonist, Team Star. These encounters are no longer woven in and out of the story. Instead, Team Star has set up outposts of their own and you’ll need to enter a special area to challenge them. In our time with the game, the one Team Star challenge was to take down a certain number of enemy Pokemon within a time limit, which then led to battling the leader of that Team Star outpost.
