The Pokémon Company has just released six minutes of new gameplay for upcoming Switch exclusive New Pokémon Snap, inadvertently triggering a massive debate on Twitter due to its ‘brutal’ depiction of violence against a certain member of the franchise’s fictional animal kingdom.
Infamous for its inability to do, well, much of anything other than muster a pathetic splash, Magikarp has become the butt of numerous jokes over the years for its prowess (or lack thereof) in battle and is universally regarded to be the weakest Pocket Monster Game Freak has ever created. It’s worth noting that the ocean dweller – based on the real-world Asian Carp – eventually evolves into the fearsome and incredibly powerful Gyarados, should Trainers exercise enough patience, but until otherwise, this fish is absolutely dead weight.
That being the case, it’s hardly surprising that carnivores consider Magikarp to be easy prey and given this title’s purpose as exhibiting Pokémon behaviour in the wild, there are plenty of opportunities to see the undesirable catch plucked from shallow waters as a tasty snack.
It’s no secret, of course, that various species of Pokémon hunt each other for food (what else would they eat?), but this is perhaps the first instance of the act being caught on camera, prompting many fans to voice their surprise on social media. The footage in question, which you can see for yourself above, contains a sequence in which Pidgeout swoops down and secures the live seafood in its talons, while another shows the jellyfish-inspired Frillish wrapping its limbs around the piscine specimen before dragging it into the depths of the ocean.
A far cry from the family-friendly image that series creator Game Freak usually strives to achieve, then, but probably not explicit enough to elicit a knock on the door from PETA. Nature is cruel, after all. As for when you can look forward to watching Magikarp suffer its inevitable fate, New Pokémon Snap launches later this month, on April 30th.