If we are provided with a system that incorporates gyms or something similar, which types and/or themes would you like to see represented this time around?
For simplicity, I'm going to go under the assumption that the gym formula will return though I do not think this will actually be the case in the actual games.
Gym 1 - Ground Type / Explorer Theme
Gym 2 - Normal Type / Baking Theme
Gym 3 - Fairy Type / Romance Theme
Gym 4 - Flying Type / Flamenco Theme (Scarlet Version) | Bug Type / Maracas Theme (Violet Version)
Gym 5 - Steel / Cycling Theme
Gym 6 - Poison Type / Winemaking Theme
Gym 7 - Electric / Disco Theme
Gym 8 - Psychic Type / Holy Magic Theme (Scarlet Version) | Dark Type / Evil Magic Theme (Violet Version)
Hmm, well in SwSh we got Grass, Fire, Water, Rock, Fighting, Ice, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, and Fairy. So we might want to steer away from some of those. Additionally, Normal, Electric, Ground, Flying, and Bug didn't get any prominent type specialist of any kind in the game (whereas Poison, Psychic, and Steel had rivals/DLC characters that specialized in those types so they're kind of on the fence), so those types should probably have priority in this game. So I would start with those 5 (Bug especially is due for one since it hasn't been a gym/trial/Elite 4 type since XY). They'll probably also choose types that are related to various cultural jobs and hobbies, so I see a very good chance of seeing Grass, Fire, Fighting, and Ghost in some way. Poison and Dark don't historically have a lot of type specialists (and especially not gym leaders) so they would be good candidates too. I don't think we'll see every single one of those types make it (although I do think we could see a good 9 or 10 of the 11), but I think most of them are distinct possibilities. Really it seems like Game Freak's caught onto that people like NPC type specialists so they've been including more of them in recent games (this was especially prevalent in SM which had
every type except Ice represented in some form, but SwSh also had a lot themselves), it's more a matter of will they actually be gym leaders or something else that's the more interesting question.
And if there's an Elite 4 in this game (or something similar), it'd be good to see at least one of them be a new type that hasn't been represented yet (Normal, Grass, Electric, and Fairy are the only types with no Elite 4 representative). Fairy's been a bit overused since its introduction, so if there's a Fairy specialist at all it should either be there or should be another type of NPC (rival, DLC character, villain, some other type of NPC).