Last week, following a series of new game announcements, The Pokémon Company promised a new presentation to be held today to announce another big project. The day has come, and today, the company"s president, Tsunekazu Ishihara, announced Pokémon Unite, a battle arena-style game being developed by Tencent"s TiMi Studios.
The partnership between the two companies was already known of, and Tencent-owned studios are well-known for battle arena games, such as League of Legends and Arena of Valor, so it"s not surprising that the final product would be something like this. TiMi Studios itself also recently developed the fairly popular Call of Duty: Mobile.
As for Pokémon Unite itself, it will be a team-based online game, with each team consisting of five players. The two teams are thrown into an arena, and each team is responsible for defending their half of the arena, while attempting to conquer the opponent"s side by attacking goals placed on each side of the arena.
Players choose their preferred Pokémon to start with and all players start at level 1. There are a number of wild Pokémon scattered throughout the arena, allowing players to level up, learn new moves, and evolve their Pokémon during the match. Defeating more wild Pokémon also means the team can get more points when they conquer one of the goals on the opponent"s side. The match goes on for a set amount of time, and whichever team has the most points by the end wins the game.
Despite having a presentation all to itself, details on Pokémon Unite seem fairly scarce. The presentation only revealed 10 creatures that players can choose from, and there"s no release window for the game, suggesting there may be significant changes before the game is available. The companies did mention that Pokémon Unite will be available as a free-to-start game for both the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices, and it will support cross-play between the platforms.