Pokémon Returns To Johto In New Open-World Adventure

Published Nov 8, 2026, 7:00 PM EST Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work. Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Johto has proven to be one of the greatest regions in a Pokémon game. Its rendition in the Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver remakes showcased its myriad colorful towns and routes, its dynamic and varied landscapes, stunning, memorable locales, and propensity for sweeping natural vistas. While subsequent regions have offered similarly remarkable areas worth exploring, none have quite reached the same heights as Johto. So, it makes sense that of all the great pre-existing Pokémon regions, Johto would be the first to receive the open-world treatment. Scarlet and Violet's largely generic landmass proved to be a tad uninspired and ill-suited for the levels of whimsy and wonder an open-world Pokémon game requires. Johto, on the other hand, can absolutely sustain a sprawling connected world, as proven by a brand-new Pokémon adventure that looks set to massively expand upon the likes of HeartGold and SoulSilver. There are so many amazing Pokémon fan games that completely transform the core experience of older titles to offer profoundly exciting and innovative ways of re-experiencing them. One such fan project is the recently released Pokémon GS Vitro, a new adventure that reimagines Pokémon Crystal as a modern, open-world Pokémon experience packed with the kind of quality-of-life improvements and contemporary Pokémon features one has come to expect from the series. Indeed, GS Vitro may be the greatest edition of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver to date. Its most notable improvement is the aforementioned open world. It completely removes any blocks between routes, connecting them all into one singular space that can be explored from the get-go. This also means that HMs have been reworked, being made available from the very start and retooled into Field Skills that aren't tied to specific moves. It's an obvious change, one that feels suitably modern and removes all of the inconvenience HMs have always been saddled with. Beyond the open-world, Pokémon GS Vitro adds several other significant changes, including an expanded Pokédex of 350+ Pokémon and certain Mega Evolutions. Additionally, GS Vitro introduces dynamic level scaling, with enemy Pokémon leveling up alongside your team, as well as unique teams per Gym leader that change depending on your Pokémon's levels, randomized teams for secondary trainers across the world to make each playthrough feel unique, and randomized items per route that change value depending on your team's level. For those interested in trying out Pokémon GS Vitro for themselves, they can download it via its official website. These changes are elevated by quality-of-life fixes, including an EXP share that affects Pokémon in your PC box, a turbo mode for battles, the inclusion of a Nuzlocke and Randomizer mode accessible from the starting screen, and more. Ostensibly, this is the definitive version of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, offering fans a unique and modern way of experiencing these classic games. It's exciting to get such ambitious fan-made Pokémon adventures, especially for those of us who've played the series ad nauseam, and even better that we're getting new ones set in the legendary region of Johto. Released March 14, 2010 ESRB e Developer(s) Game Freak Publisher(s) Nintendo Franchise Pokemon