>>57154807No, it couldn't and wasn't meant to, because it was the third project of the Gen. They decided to make three projects in Gen 8: SS, its DLC (replacing the unfeasible rehash effort) and A.N. Other game, not two because they were struggling under the weight of adapting to 3D development, like back in Gen 6 where they killed a project internally to better focus on Gen 7. It was exactly what they wanted to do with it, a game set in Sinnoh's past, echoing the Ezochi/Hokkaido progression from its real-world inspirations, that was self-contained, easily finished and most importantly, was not intended to have a lifespan longer than the end of the Generation, as they had another new Gen pair incoming, which they'd even signalled when they pitched L: A's launch date as "28th Jan 2022", a whole month before Pokémon day to leave it free to announce SV.
