James Turner, the first Westerner to ever officially design a Pokémon during his time at Game Freak, has rejoined the franchise after 4 years.
Turner left Game Freak in 2022 to work on The Plucky Squire, which was developed by All Possible Futures, a developer he co-founded with Jonathan Biddle.
The game was released to positive reviews in 2024; it currently holds a Metacritic score between 72 and 83 depending on the platform, with 85% of critics on OpenCritic recommending the game.
Now Turner has announced that he will once again work on the Pokémon franchise, this time as the Creative Director of Pokémon Art and Design at The Pokémon Company International.
“Big news! I’ve started a new role as Creative Director of Pokémon Art and Design at The Pokémon Company International,” he wrote on X.
“It feels great to be working in the world of Pokémon again, with a lovely group of people. I’m very excited about what comes next!”
While exactly what this role will entail is unclear, it’s likely a very different role from the one he occupied during his time at Game Freak. Turner is responsible for the design of several Pokémon, including finalising the design of Shadow Lugia, and creating Pokémon including Vanillite, Golett, Vullaby, Phantump and many more.
Turner also designed several Pokémon trading cards, including Pansear from Next Destinies and the Duskull, Dusclops and Dusknoir art rares from Shrouded Fable.
While Turner hadn’t worked full-time on the Pokémon franchise for years until now, he did contribute several art pieces in recent years that were featured on merchandise sold via The Pokémon Center.
