All the people in this thread saying that pokemon shouldn't, pokemon is exactly the perfect series for a comfy open world game. The series' strength isn't the battling nor the gyms and elite 4. It's strength lies in the exploration of the world and the animals that lie within it. There is a reason that pokemon has the highest amount of fanfiction for a single game series, there is a reason that there are so many plushes that people like to collect, there is a reason people will sit through all the filler episodes of the anime. They like the extra information and just feeling of being in the world.
If they had to make it go to only 100 pokemon dex, but you got to see extreme levels of depth with each monster that adds a deep level of quality to them it would feel worth it. You go in depth with how many monsters say Skyrim has, and it's actually not many. Just variants on a couple designs. Yet the game and world is so in depth that people are still making videos of stuff that you haven't learned. That could be the future of pokemon, the gameplay is an easy thing to change. Although of course I think they should go like
>>39367502 said at first and do it as a high investment spin off game, using a third party. A spin off game that will probably be the highest selling game that nintendo will have in the series.