After a week-long hype train, the Pokemon Company revealed its latest project, Pokemon Unite, a Pokemon themed MOBA developed by Tencent Games and Timi Studios. Pokemon Unite will take the franchise into a genre of gaming that Pokemon has yet to explore.
Timi Studios, which is in charge of Pokemon Unite's development, is the studio behind popular mobile games like Call of Duty: Mobile and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: Army Attack. Timi Studios is known for its international MOBA, Arena of Valor, which is a 5v5 multiplayer available on mobile devices and Nintendo Switch. Together, the Pokemon Company and Timi Studios hope to bring the same gameplay experience from Arena of Valor to the world of Pokemon.
The official Pokemon Company YouTube channel broadcasted a Pokemon Premiere video that boasted 11 minutes in length. The length of the video lead fans to believe that the reveal would include an array of title reveals, but Pokemon Unite ate up the entirety of the premiere. Tsunekazu Ishihara, President and CEO of the Pokemon Company, announced the reveal of Pokemon Unite followed by an extensive showcase of gameplay. Ishihara teamed up with internet personalities to battle against other players in a 5 v 5 Pokemon Unite showdown.
Pokemon Unite is unlike any other Pokemon game as it features the largest number of Pokemon involved in a single battle in real-time combat. Ishihara stated that the goal behind Pokemon Unite was to create a cooperative Pokemon game that anyone could pick up and enjoy immediately. This team-based battle game features 10 Pokemon for players to choose from that they will control during the battle. They will then capture wild Pokemon on the battlefield that can be deposited at enemy towers. Once enough Pokemon have been deposited, that tower will be destroyed. Player-controlled Pokemon can also battle one another.
While this is a step in a new direction for the Pokemon franchise, it's not necessarily the step fans had anticipated. A week prior to the reveal, Pokemon announced it would be having a secondary premier to reveal a "big project" it had been working on. This led people to assume the announcement would be the highly requested Sinnoh remakes or Let's GO Johto. Instead, Pokemon Unite was announced which left a lot of fans disappointed. But the release of Pokemon Unite could introduce fans of the MOBA genre to the Pokemon franchise, and Pokemon Unite is a free-to-start game that will be available on all mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch when it launches.
Source: Pokemon/YouTube