Pokémon Unite, An Online Team Battle Game, Revealed For Switch And Mobile

Few years ago I never would have thought that someday I would be glad that no new main game was announced
But hyping fans one week up for a moba game is stupid

Aw yeah more free to start pokemon rip offs. Just what I wanted

Someone got some dota in their pokemon

While I am not hating on the game, I am just not quite sure why this could not have been announced last week alongside the rest of announcements..?

Wow what a big announcement.

@BenAV I dunno man, that looked fun and it was free. My wallet is feeling a little unsafe right now, depending on how they monetize it.

I'm somehow more hyped for this than the mainline games and the best part is that I won't lose anything for trying it.

What sucks is that it's a mobile (sort of?) spin-off and I hate those out of principle... But this one actually looks decent enough for me to try it. They just better not be scummy with how they want money. I'd still rather they just charge upfront instead of f2p

For some time I’ve felt that if a major Japanese publisher (with Nintendo kinda being an exception) hyped up a “big announcement” it is likely to be something far below expectations or a rerelease or a mobile game. They want word to spread and will lead you with a carrot and stick all the way even if they know you’ll be disappointed.

ROFL, free to play mobile garbage.

I am so thoroughly disappointed.

I really thought we were getting Let's Go Johto.

Just no. Should been part of last weeks announcements

Was that real life?

Boring. But I'm glad that Lets Go is nowhere to be found.

Why did they do a whole new direct just for this? Like I'm happy they are taking a year off for mainline entries but just why a whole new presentation just for this? If they did it in the last pokemon presents people would be a lot less disappointed

It was quite amazing watching the dislikes go from 1.7k to 12k in under 5 minutes.

Is this what the kids these days call a MOBA? Either way, not my thing but I’m sure someone out there is hyped

Tencent,
Mobile,
Free 2 play.

Enough reasons not to buy / play.

They could of just kept this in the first presentation. No real need to gice this its own presentation.

Not amazed, but I'll give it a try on Switch.

What a waste of a direct, I thought the MOBA fad was dying out, maybe I was just be hopeful, so silly to do a separate presentation just for this.

Looks okay, though I’m not really into MOBA games. I’m just excited that no mainline Pokémon game is coming out this year. I like SnS but Game Freak needs to spend more time on their next game, these annual releases are why we didn’t get a Breath of the Wild makeover for the series.

@BenAV Eh, I'd say mediocre describes it better.

What a mess. The biggest media franchise in the world couldn't get decent technical support so the audio matched up with visuals? Plus the announcement was utter trash, what a letdown.

All that hype for a LoL clone?
Also its Tencent, that already makes me not want to give it a try.

so much for the gen 2 plushies tease from last week eh? 😂

Definitely the '2020' of Pokemon announcements

They really could of just talked about this game in last week's Pokemon direct instead of doing another one just to talk an game nobody asked for.

Shut up and take my money, whats that no need to pay take it take it take it take it take it take it take it.

That was brutal to watch. Definitely a pass for us but I hope some people enjoy it!

Yet again proof that The Pokemon Company and Game Freak have sidelined their main series games in order to work on spin-offs. This is also why the main series games play like mobiles games as well. Masuda said as much when commenting on their lack of postgame content a few years back.

I think they really thought this was a “big” announcement. They are out of touch.

Just....... disappointed!

I wasn't expecting the remakes or a massive game announcement because it'd take the shine from Crown Tundra. I was expecting a spin-off, but man I'm disappointed. Not because it's not what I wanted, but because this feels like another cynical attempt by Pokemon to make obscene amounts of money.

They already have several metas to keep people hooked on their product - the mainline games for RPG lovers, the TCG for card collectors, Pokken for fighting game enthusiasts, Pokemon Go for mobile players - and Pokemon Unite just feels like a blatant attempt just to scoop up MOBA players. Times like this, I envy Zelda fans. Their developers spend all their time just building on their new games for quality's sake.

I can't believe they made us wait a week for this. I surely hope they don't do this again.

#BoycottMOBAgames 🤟
My money is NOT for disgusting MOBA style games.
I'm half Chinese, i don't even need that garbage.

Tencent, mobile, MOBA-style gameplay, F2P...wow, it's almost as if they actually went out of their way to incorporate everything I loathe about games nowadays in one package 😂
Not gonna touch this with a barge pole, not a chance!

If they hadn't called it a "Big announcement", they would have saved themselves a lot of disappointed fans.

This seems like one of those announcements that would have been used as filler between stuff people actually care about during a Direct

They are really bad at managing expectations.

This should have been apart of last week's direct.

Yeah, definitely not downloading or playing this trash.

What a let down

Don't really have a big problem with the concept but making people wait a week for it just seems like a perfect way to get people annoyed.

Should have just developed it as a proper Switch game. It could be way better. Not this mobile free to start nonsense where it'll be dead with a year.

Way to make people wait an extra week... for this. Should have switched it with Pokemon Snap.

Even the tooth brushing app was more exciting.

So this is how I get into League...

I’m glad that this isn’t Let’s Go Johto, but this whole presentation was such a letdown. Somehow in about the same time, last week’s presentation was able to show much more content and game reveals, yet as I was watching this one, there really was no variety in what they were showing. It was the same Pokemon, same stage, same mechanics being shown off, which is not a good look for the game itself at all.

Will I try it? Yeah. But making us wait a week for ONLY this was beyond dumb. If anything, they should have had this be the last reveal of last week’s presentation where they could just leave it all off there.

Called it a week ago it would be crap, but good lord it's beyond crap and lazy.

Wow.... what I always wanted.... thanks Gamefreak.... How can there be such a company that is so disconnected from their core audience? Like seriously, who in the world asked for this!!

I've been really meh about Pokemon for a while now this didn't help this made it worse.

to think some people where getting over hyped and thinking red and blue remakes etc. i myself was expecting more and on my birthday too more than a bit of a let down. I will give it a go of course cause it free to play but why do i get a feeling it will be pay to win.

Well, I guess for GameFreak this is probably huge. Pokémon sells billions on mobile alone. So I guess, yeah, this is a big announcement.

I'm off and on with LoL, and honestly just can't have too much fun with it any more, so this is a surreal announcement. It makes a lot of sense for Pokemon, but I was expecting something bigger. No idea why this was its own video, even if it'll probably end up being fairly big. I want to try it out, but I don't know how much more I can take of ten dopes waddling around the map until one guy gets caught out and loses the game.

@MisterWhen League of Legends is still very popular, but for some reason, people who aren't addicted to it forget its existence.

This should've been announced with Cafe and the Toothbrush game and Snap should've been this week if they really wanted to do this weird 2 livestream thing lmao

That was... not what I wanted. Since getting Ring Fit Adventure I've been thinking it'd be cool if it was a collab with Pokémon, kind of like Pokémon Go but Ring Fit Adventure style!

Not my thing, but good for those who like MOBAs, I suppose.

They lost me the moment they uttered the name tencent.

@BenAV yeah, and that's fine. I'm just happy it's free sortof since it's even easier for people to show what they think about this, just don't spend cash!

Not sure why this was its own presentation, but there you go.

Seems like Nintendo and the Pokémon company aren't as friendly as they previously were.

Time was there was only the odd spin-off here and there and now it seems were swamped with Pocket Monster games left right and centre.

Well, should we express this despair with this song ?

And now you've given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heart....

Just make an actual fleshed out Pokemon Stadium game. Good battle system, good graphics and...fun minigames!!! Trading your Pokemon from Sword/Shield (not that I have either...). That sounds like a moneymaker to me.

They should’ve put this in last weeks direct and announced pokémon snap for the “big announcement”, disappointed to say the least

@Bendu Tencent probably demanded their game was SPESHUL and shouldn't share screen time with other games.

But yeah I didn't have any hopes for this but was at least looking forward to something big or weirder than even the toothbrush game. This is a basic-looking Moba made by a no-name dev with a decade of experience making money-sucking games for Tencent.

This was about the worst announcement they could have made.

Calling something a big announcement. And announcing a free to play moba with tencent behind the monetising strategy? No.... Just no....

Integrity of the Pokémon company is down the drain.....

Saw a gameplay video on YouTube, and yea, basically league of legends with pokemon 😂

@HydroTendonMan I was hoping for at least a second outing to Pokken.

@bones Happy Birthday Bones!

>Tencent
Yeah, not going near it. I’d honestly be happy with either Let’s GO Johto or D/P remakes.

Well this was kind of disappointing to be honest. If you say you got an huge reveal to make, and then announce an new mobile game is an let down

You would think the Pokemon Company would learn from Blizzard's mistake. "You guys have phones, don't you?"

lol... seriously? this was needed a 11 min presentation alone?

still, happy about getting Pokemon Snap though.
just to clarify: i'm probably gonna give it a try. i just don't think they should have said "this is a big announcement".

@Bendu Most likely because Tencent wanted its own segment, without having to share airtime with any other game. This would have been easily forgotten if it was revealed alongside Snap. Calling it a "big" announcement was probably also a Tencent requirement.

I think people are sleeping on this....Timi Studios has already released two successful MOBAs - the only company I can think of to have done so (Arena of Valor, Honor of Kings). They've also handled the Call of Duty series on Mobile, which pushed graphical fidelity on mobile devices despite a wide range of hardware successfully. I think they could do well with the Switch tegra processer and set hardware. And with Tencent's money behind them and Pokémon's license, if Tencent is treating this as a real investment for a pot shot at a DOTA 2 and LOL competitor, then this could well be set up to be the best MOBA alternative to the PC market.

Plus, this gives a slimmer of hope for Tencent's other titles. I really want Dungeon Fighter Online (2D brawler MMO - 2nd best selling PC game of all time, really popular here in China) on Switch, or at least on Switch here in China. :3

Really not happy to see The Pokémon Company teaming up with Tencent. That company is beyond redemption and working with them is not a good look.

Tencent lmao now y’all can shut up about companies like Platinum because Nintendo and Game Freak themselves are in bed with those f*ckers.

What a load of Crap, game freak is getting to the EA Activision crap level

A mobile game was like the only thing that could make me be disappointed and here we are. This should have been part of last week's presentation ...

Glad I skipped through that garbage of a presentation.

Now I bet you all would rather Let's go Johto over this!
I don't know, mobile games are not my jam. I guess this is for another target that doesn't includes me.

I'm "Meh" on Pokemon Unite. The Pokemon Company is trying to cash in on the MOBA genre and there's plenty of competition for that anyway.

This was...not what I expected, to be sure. Big letdown for me, since I'm very much not a MOBA person (or a free-to-play-game-riddled-with-microtransactions person).

I knew that chances of a new mainline game were slim considering that we're getting the Crown Tundra DLC this autumn, but from the hype level they were trying to drum up with a separate presentation, I was expecting either another Let's Go game or a remake of a spin-off like Pokemon Ranger or Pokemon Colosseum (which made sense to me since they had all those gen 2 plushies in the back of the first presentation, along with that gigantic black Pikachu). I DEFINITELY won't be getting this, that's for sure.

I say we give the game a chance, I do think pokemon snap would have better suit the hype this week then last week. Big project my butt.

Oh boy! How out of touch are the Pokemon Company?

Big announcement? Hah, who are they trying to convince? Themselves?
Think they got confused and were actually meant to unveil Pokemon Snap this week and this f2p moba monstrosity last week.

Whoever is in charge of the PC's pr and marketing badly need firing XD
So many misfires in just over a year.

Everything in the first direct seperately was more exciting than this.

Pokemon company is becoming the next EA, right when EA is slowly getting a little bit better

@OtterKnight They're not trying to connect with the core fanbase. They're trying to get a new fanbase like with Pokken and Pokemon Go so they can make more money.

@luxoricious Nope. Lets Go becoming a series would be the worst case scenario.

I don't care about Unite, but I breathed a big sigh of relief when it wasn't LG.

I can't even right now

@Glassneedles you know with the news that Nintendo seem set to scale down their own mobile effort because of the Switch's success... I recall it was pointed out that a lot of Nintendo's mobile games were the result of disappointment with the WiiU rather than anything more recent.

Which is to say... games take time to develop and all.

Recalling all the uncertainty about Sword+Shield and how well or not it would sell... I wonder if all these mobile projects were started before Sword&Shield's launch due to fear traditional pokemon games would be "done" after the success of pokémon go and the like.

In the end Sword and Shield sold a -massive- amount of copies, probably breaking all expectations... but all these mobile projects started before the launch still had to be completed and I wonder if these big 'announcements' might not be some kind of attempt to salvage these projects rather than just canning them outright.

As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if the Pokemon Company later announced scaling back mobile efforts in a year or two like Nintendo is reportedly doing.

Another mobile game. And people on here saying EA is bad, lmao.

Lol If I wanted to play a Moba I would play one on PC and with Tencent no thanks keep your spyware.

Depends on how they will monetise it.

This definitely wasn't what I expected, but it doesn't sound too bad. Hopefully, if it is free to start, then you can purchase all the content with a one time fee. That wouldn't make it so bad.

wow, big reveal.. they couldn't reveal this last week why?

@Ludovsky Nah don't kid yourself dude. Pokemon's going to keep developing mobile games because, unlike Nintendo mobile games, Pokemon Go makes them an absurd amount of money. They've been fascinated with mobile games since Gen 6 when Minamoto said in an interview that they made the games extremely easy because, "Kids just want to fly through their games so they can get back to their cellphones". We won't be seeing an end to Pokemon mobiles anytime soon.

The only good news is that this means we aren't getting main games this year. Hopefully not next year either, I'd prefer the next main games to come out circa 2024 at the earliest.

@Brydontk Which is fine. It’s not the game I have a problem with it’s the way it was announced. When you say you have a big Pokémon announcement, that usually means something for old fans not for the new ones. I’m all for bringing in new people but this wasn’t a good announcement

@OtterKnight I agree. Honestly would've been better off either announced in the last presents or to have the trailer shadow-dropped.

MOBA pokemon...

As somebody who hit grandmasters in league of legends.. I'll pass LMAO. Tencent just does not care about the quality of their games and companies running their games, I would be very surprised if more than 2 new pokemon get added per year until the game is neglected, left in a bad balance state, and shutdown like pokemon duel in a few years.

I love how this game is tencent's master plan to introduce kids to the moba genre so that they migrate to league and spend money on skins there. They already banked off TPC paying them to make this game.

This was the "big" announcement? Some F2P pile of garbage was worth a separate 11 minute video apparently

Don't mind me. I thought I would bring some buckets of water for this thread.

I might have to make a couple of visits.

I guess this is what people wanted lol A massive online multiplayer pokemon game with real time battles. You got your wish

why not stick to what made pokemon what it is. Drive away fans and everyone else will be like mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. my kids love pokemon sowrd and shield but already are fed up of mobile ***** games.

@Araquanid pokemon dual was different, when they swapped from no lootboxes to a sub service, then everything went downhill.

I will stick to the vastly superior to the rest League of Legends. I will say it is a neat idea but no one is going to play that over an already established MOBA they are invested in upwards of 500$ like me lol.

Missed chance to call it "Pokemon League"

I get why they are doing it but it wasn’t what the people wanted. Maybe don’t build it up as this amazing thing, should have been announced last week and Snap this week!

I just wish they would wait with making all these random games until they have at least released all parts of Sword and Shields DLC. That game needs more work before they take focus away from it to work on other games.
It still doesn't feel like a high quality Switch game to me.
All the horrible pop-in and extreme weather changes from walking a small distance in the wild area should be tweaked. And I would really like an actual cave instead of a single pathway through the mountains. I miss caves like the Seafoam Islands cave and I miss exploring places like Mt. Coronet.
Old ruins where also one of my favorite things to explore in older Pokemon games. And the puzzles were really fun!
I just miss the exploration. There's not really any exploration in the new games. It just feels like there is this single road that the game forces you to go on as soon as you start the game, and if you try to go the opposite way it will keep reminding you that you are not supposed to go there now.
It feels like beyond handholding at this point. It's more like I'm being dragged around in a baby cart so that the game can show me the story instead of letting me just play the game. Also, why make it impossible to catch higher level pokemon?! Just use the old system where pokemon that are too high level will simply disobey you until you get enough badges!
At least I get a little more to "explore" now that the first part of the DLC is released...

I love when everyone tries to out think Nintendo or pokémon company as to what they're releasing next and they just say psych

Not all that surprised to be honest, the latest Pokemon games have not been out for long, and still have DLC coming out for them, the let's go games were always just testing the water for the franchises jump to the Switch.

@nessisonett what's wrong with Tencent?

I’m not mad. All this means is I’ll have more time to enjoy Isle of Armor & Crown Tundra.

@TheLightSpirit Not really, depends who you play with. I destroy everyone when I play. I also turn off the global chat so I don't hear any people being silly.

I have a bad feeling about this!

@Brydontk Ahundred percent agreed!!

They should have at least announced a good mobile game (cough) Pokémon Sleep

@Otoemetry They’re one of the richest companies in the world renowned for copying rivals. Pony Ma himself said “to copy is not evil”. All those App Store MOBAs that look identical, they’re Tencent. A battle royale that looks remarkably similar to another game, that’s Tencent. If all else fails, they’ll just buy a company and force them to make uninteresting clones of games for the Chinese market. That’s what people worry about when Tencent take charge of companies.

Don't you guys have phones?

I love seeing salty Pokemon fans rage it fills me with joy

@nessisonett eww that's gross. Isn't Tencent the developer behind Genshin Impact too?

First of all, they really couldn't squeeze this presentation last week? Really?
Second of all, where are the games for the other half of the year?
So far Nintendo didn't show anything apart from Mario Paper.
At this point last year we were discussing what we would be buying in the festive season.

Should have swapped this with Snap which was a bigger draw for fans. Disappointed it’s not Let’s Go 2, quite enjoyed the first one.

So many people seem to be confused between Game Freak and the Pokemon Company.

@tourjeff Come on, they had to show off people getting really excited, hoping it would rub off on us!

But yeah, a freemium MOBA from a dodgy Chinese company, hard pass...

@tourjeff This was an exclusively Pokemon presentation, so why would you expect that much, especially since you seem to be looking for non-Pokemon games. Also, we are in a global pandemic.

I don't know... I did enjoy MOBAs for a while, so this MIGHT be fun to play. I will probably try it before deciding if it's good or bad.

Is this trash, yes. But could it be have been any worse.... Maybe? Who could of got a new line of toys to life or something. Even that would have been cooler tdh.

Its cool & i’ll give it a go since its free-to-start BUT this should have just be revealed in the last presentation...

I’m so disappointed with the Pokémon Company. I have tried to remain hopeful and support they but I swear I feel that they are turning into EA. I just hope they don’t get their greedy hands on Pokémon Snap and ruin the experience. They already destroy the main franchise with Pokémon Sword and Shield.

My kids were super excited until they didn't announce a release date

I know a lot of people here are upset but honestly I've been waiting for a Pokemon Moba, it just makes sense and could be a lot of fun. Now it depends on how they monetize it, they could f it up pretty bad but we'll just have to wait and see.

From the developers of Clap for Xi Jinping: An Awesome Speech...

@RPGamer GF is developing DLC packs for Sword/Shield, which are essentially replacing the third versions. What more did you all expect from them this year? Also, I see lots of people complaining about Pokemon losing quality from becoming an annual series, but then when there isn't a whole brand new title for one year other people flip out. GF can't win this one.

Sure, I would have loved Diamond/Pearl remakes, but that wasn't happening this year, not after they showed they were focusing on DLC.

It looks ok, can't say i personally expected another mainline game, although I did expect something a little more.Might give it a try when it releases.

Still would have probably hurt less to those expecting a mainline game if it was revealed last week though. Calling it a "big project" was probably because of Tencent's involvement but that could have been re-worded to not excite everyone wanting something bigger.

I'll never remember this in the future, it was just fine, so I'm going to get on with my life.

@Harmonie that’s a fair argument and I partially agree with you. In my opinion, the reason I’m upset with Gamefreak is because to me Sword and Shield didn’t deliver a full experience. To me it felt rush almost like they wanted to meet the deadline instead of taking their time to complete the game. The campaign was too short and they cut half of all the Pokémon. So as a consumer I felt like they took advantage of me. Now they are trying to complete that experience with paid DLC when again in my opinion I feel like that should’ve been part of the game from the beginning. I swear I’m not hating on the Pokémon Company I have been supporting them since the first game but I honestly feel like this.

Wow, just wow, too much paranoia here, again, Game Freak being EA ?, you guys are seriously exaggerated, sorry, but it's true. When Game Freak publishes their games, when it's a big company, when they buy other studios, when they start to ruin those studios and the games, then, yes, you can tell me unequivocally that Game Freak is EA. The only mistake of Game Freak is not having planned things correctly, that is all true.
On the other hand, this game has nothing to do with Game Freak, because they only develop and give the ideas, designs and characters of the main games.

@Harmonie I thought about it the other day, and my personal theory on that is Gamefreak did that to themselves. We want them to take extra time developing a game because they've just been shoving games out every year. But because they've been shoving games out every year and with Pokemon's fantastic gameplay feedback loop of catching new monsters and battling, we've been conditioned to want and expect a Poke title every year. And I think the yearly releases, while mediocre, have also kept us from noticing the stagnation.

But with Sword and Shield coming out after many many franchises evolved their games (Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, God of War, etc) we expect more from the highest earning franchise in the world. So Pokemon more or less shot themselves in the foot (as far as fan satisfaction goes, they're still making a ton of money) by trying to make money so fast and frequently.

Boooooooooooring

This.. was their.. big project?
...ha...
...ha......... ha.................
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Get out.

@Harmonie Geez, it was so dang surreal reading comments online about people worried how Pokemon was taking so long with a new game after Omega Ruby. Granted, that's partly on Game Freak's head of setting up the annual release dates, but I'm surprised that people were so antsy about it.

I mean im happy that theyre going to be spending more time developing future mainline games, but at the same time im severely dissapointed in this as an announcement.

@ThePolitician I'm aware that this was a Pokemon presentation and we are going through a global crisis.
My point was that this presentation could have been squeezed last week. It didn't need to be shown a week later as there is absolutely nothing special about it.
My other point is that Nintendo hasn't showed much yet and the pandemic might have cause some problems but their games predicted to be released this year should be well advanced in development (if not ready) that they could do a Direct this month.

@flightsaber Thank you for being a voice of reason. I'm not understanding all the hate. Tencent even owns Riot, so their pedigree in MOBA/DOTA games is above average. This definitely doesn't look like your average MOBA since it removes the tower destruction mechanics and seems to focus more on a capture the point element.

I get the impression that the comments on this article are going to be...interesting

Last I checked there were 20k more dislikes than likes. Lol

I have a "big announcement" for The Pokemon Company, this Dotamon game sucks.

Looks better than the rescue dungeon remake... I’ll definitely try it out!
I like that they are attempting new things, and Free to Play is always a plus (although many will complain of the inherent issues it may bring along as a result).

@nessisonett @Otoemetry It goes even further than that. Since Tencent is by proxi part of the Chinese government (they own any large Chinese in practice), stuff like this get uncomfortably political. Especially since China is very strict on what is allowed and what not; i.e. censorship. So Tencent buying up stocks in major companies is effectively China taking more control over foreign companies. They've been doing it for years though, but in recent years they started to buy their way into the entertainment industry as well.

. . . anyways ! glad I forgot about tuning into this.

Oh man. I'll certainly have more fun playing this than I would have Let's Go Johto! ...but probably not that much more. I certainly agree that this didn't need its own separate announcement video.

As a more casual Pokemon fan who mostly plays hero shooters & MOBAs, I'm really excited for this.

I dont think this is what anyone wanted from The Pokemon Company. I may give it a try as it is free to play, but going forward i hope they dont continue down this avenue, they really need to concentrate all of their time and resources into creating a mainline game that is top quality, rather than another half baked entry such as SW/SH.

I fully appreciate that E3 hasn't happened this year, but I was expecting some half decent announcements from Nintendo during the month of June.

Nothing yet. Poor show.

Pass. Where’s Mario All Stars 2...

As I predicted, it was a Pokemon MOBA.

I'm not a big fan of the genre, but I'm interested to see how it is recieved. LOL is huge, as is Arena of Valor/Honor of Kings in mainland Asia, so there is big potential.

Vile, rancid, repugnant, distasteful, horrifying, bizarre, revolting, reprehensible, sleazy filth in the worst possible sense of the word. Just when you thought they couldn't go any lower, they hype a free-to-play Pokemon MOBA game in 2020 via a bait-and-switch style "our next big project is on the way!" announcement, subverting fans' expectations and wants for a new Let's Go game, a Sinnoh remake, or anything else that could even be mistaken for a quality Pokemon video game. They now innovate exclusively in sowing disappointment, though disappointing products are among the least concerning problems with The Pokemon Company now that they are directly funding human rights abuses by virtue of having Tencent develop their products. They could have easily contracted a non-CCP-owned Japanese company to develop a MOBA title for them if the product rather than its target market were the focus. Just a shameless, appalling cash grab to get Pooh Bear bucks. Maybe they'll do a match three puzzle game with Kim Jong Un next, should they ever wish to break into the lucrative North Korean software market.

Every single choice The Pokemon Company have made for the past several years has been inspired and almost genius in how off-putting it is to longtime fans of the series who try very hard to still enjoy what they do with the Pokemon IP. Every small detail of every decision they make is lovingly crafted, crash-tested and finely-tuned to guarantee maximum disappointment. Right when you think they couldn't possibly manage to do any worse than what they already have, they manage to surprise you in the worst possible way in what must be the inspired results of some divine prank. It's incredibly sad to watch them drag the Pokemon series through the gutter, like a washed-up rock star slinging endless re-issues of their old classics. There is nothing Nintendo can do about it, either, they couldn't buy out The Pokemon Company even if they wanted to (if anything, The Pokemon Company would be the one to buy Nintendo out).

@Andymad know what you mean, where are the big guns Nintendo? I want that sweet Mario announcement x

@Yorumi Well hold on, we don't know everything about it yet.

Though yeah, Tencent being a part of this drives me nuts, I can't stand them, they are the devil. Better the devil you know, I guess.

The game still looks amusing for a free game though.

@MysteryCupofJoe Literally anything with any sort of meat on its bones would have been better than this.

There are so many things wrong with this I don't even know where to start.

But let's strip away all of that and look at the game itself... How. How can you give a game one, ONE, map with the most basic and simple design imaginable and call it "strategic" with a straight face? There's marketing lies and then there's...that.

So what was the big news they were gonna reveal? Jk thats marketing for ya.

@Kalmaro
Now you understand how it feels that some people give opinion without being an opinion or in their case, just a sign of exaggerated annoyance

Well, this wouldn’t be the first time Gamefreak disappointed/lied to us.

I was serious when is said the Pokémon ip should be given to another publisher. TPC and GF have outlived their usefulness to fans and their out of touch demeanor shows that.

Not to sound like a Persona 5 for Switch stan, but did anyone want this?

So far the game is delivering on uniting people as they apparently wanted it to!

Y'know, because there are an awful lot of dislikes on the reveal trailer and the Presents stream itself!

Bloody hell. What gives😟

They made us wait a week for a mobile game.

My eyes rolled so hard they popped out and fell into the washing up bowl.

I would have rather my prediction about it just being an expansion of mega or dynamax Pokemon in SwSh or Go over this. No thanks, I'm good with the two Pokemon games I'm currently playing.

Looks interesting.... but a seperate Present just for this? They must be smoking something really strong

@SakuraHaruka I've known how that feels for a long time. That's just how people are with a lot of things.

Tencent controversy is enough for me not to touch it. I read enough about them on Steam and whether it's true or not I don't care. I am just not going near them.

I'm counting less than ten positive or neutral comments out of the nearly 200 total comments at time of writing. It's weird, to me at least. I come on Nintendo Life and I see stories about things I either don't care about or don't like - even actively dislike - and I just skip over those stories. Don't read 'em, don't comment on 'em. I don't understand the... compulsion? I dunno, what is it?.. to just dump all over stuff.

Ah well. This game looks fairly fun and interesting to me. I'll certainly give it a try. Though now I guess I'm a little worried about not having anyone else to play it with, haha.

Yaaaaawn, another Pokemon. Another free-to-play, this time from your friends at Tencent.

I know the pokemon company is somehow seperate from Nintendo, but MAN am I longing to see footage from interesting games: Zelda, Metroid, etc. Helllloooo Nintendo, wake up!!

I've been asking for this for awhile now. Im not entirely convinced that the game will hold up well in the form it was presented to us, but think if they add a few more pokemon and maybe another lane or two, this game could be perfect!

I'm disappointed but if some people enjoy this, great.

@Paej13,

Its probably because People's frustration since Nintendo isn't showing S...! I know it is coming, but man is the waiting exhausting. Especially since Sony already revealed their PS5 and they did show interesting stuff, and some are even scheduled for this year.

Yeah okay I can finally say Pokemon Go broke them. That’s it. I’m done supporting this company. Pokemon fan for 20+ years, I’m out. How did anyone think this was a good idea!?!? How out of touch are these people?!?!?

Hey guys, there are some Greek dudes out front with a giant wooden horse. They say it's a gift to our city because they love Troy SO MUCH. I don't see anything suspicious about it at all, how about you guys?

Man Pokemon and Gamefreak haven't been the same since Gen 4 and 5. Everything feels like a mobile game these days. I didn't expect going 3D and gimmicky would lead to this. They seriously need to get back to their roots or take a page from The Legend of Zelda Series and only release quality main line games and spin off games, like Mystery Dungeon.

Has there been a Pokemon Musou game yet?

Looks pretty awesome imo

At this point I'm absolutely not suprised how disappointing game freak has become

I'm not one for MOBAs, so this'll be a pass for me. I'm just relieved it isn't an announcement for the main series since I think it deserves a break this year.

All that said....If this is executed correctly, I'm sure it'll do well.

Poor Game Freak lol. Getting slammed for a game they not even making Bahaha.

I'm not sure by what means this is the "First Pokemon Team Battle".

The ability to have multiple people battle on the same side of a fight has existed for a long time.

I think the reaction would have been much less negative if it was revealed as part of last week's presentation. But by showing off the likes of New Pokemon Snap last week and then saying that this presentation would showcase their next big major project, they gave people the wrong expectations.

No no no, not for me, roll on when Pokemon Snap 2 releases...

Big announcement for investors not so much gamers it seems

This is why I almost exclusively play indie games these days. At least those companies still need to keep the gamer happy to survive. The last thing TPC is thinking about is keeping its core game audience happy. It’s thinking about the same thing every other massive corporation is thinking about... shareholders and demographics and new markets and Winnie the Pooh’s magic hunny pot.

They said it'd be a big ANNOUNCEMENT, not a big GAME 😅

Games like Paper Mario they drop out from nowhere and in less than a day everybody know about it. Crap like this they put all the light and prey that in one hour some people still remember

This is freaking ridiculous. The backlash this presentation got is COMPLETELY warranted. When you announce an entire presentation on this new Pokemon game, expectations are going to be high... there is no need to hype people up for something like this.

This has got to be the biggest bait and switch The Pokemon Company has ever done. I hope their Unite game tanks hard and they take full notice.

How did Clefable get into the starting lineup for this game? Like, really? Clefable? Sure, you could eventually add it, but is Clefable really a heavy hitter mascot/fan favorite that you want to lead with? Am I missing something? Is Clefable big in China?

Also too much Kanto. I'm a broken record about this, but I'd love it if they started representing Pokemon's full history with more evenly-divided rosters.

Is this the LoL killer?

Kinda hard to take this backlash seriously when people are blaming Gamefreak for a game they aren't developing lol.

@RPGamer PR doesn't work the way we think it should. You have to take in "big project" with a large grain of salt. Especially with the context of GF working on DLC packs this year. It wasn't ever going to be a GF Pokemon game.

Likely the main reason that TPC considered this a big project to reveal is because it's a partnership with Tencent. It's huge from their company perspective, even though it's not to us. It's frustrating, but again, people shouldn't have been expecting a full game release from GF this year. Their 2020 release is the DLC packs.

You could say that Nintendo/TPC/etc need to work on their PR, but I bet they only can really see it from the business perspective AND they also want to sell the product high because of this.

I swear this isn't even the first time TPC has blown up something small and insignificant as something major. lol.

@westman98 I'm pretty sure people know it's Tencent partnering with TPC. They explicitly mentioned that in the presentation, so unless you missed that, that's what it's going to be.

@NookMiler
There are a good number of people here blaming Gamefreak lol

Man, another example of people getting WAY too angry at video games.

And yeah, Game Freak has nothing to do with this, talk about knee jerk reactions. 😂

That needed it's own announcement trailer? THAT? Screw off Pokemon Company.

Could be fun, but being that Tencent is involved with it, gonna be a hard pass from me, I expected better from Nintendo than to make a game with the Chinese government

@HydroTendonMan no NO NO thank god that does NOT need to be a series thank God!

Not many noticed this, but this is was hinted last year when Tencent announced they were collaborating with TPCi to make a new Pokemon game. And it makes me question what Tencent wants to do on Switch, the console front.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/11/chinese_video_game_giant_tencent_wants_to_create_console_games_with_nintendo_characters

My cell phone is ready

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TFj0mUyxGNA

This just did not need to be its own video. They should have had it in the previous video with all the content together.

And let's be real, this game isn't for western or Japanese audiences. It's to allow Pokemon to break into China in a big way. Pokemon wants a piece of the Chinese pie and this is their way in.

Sorry, I have no interest in a free to start game. Hard pass from me.

This is the biggest bs I've seen in a long time! Bah! League of Pokémon! 'big' announcement? Have the Pokémon company and Nintendo lost their know-how and connection to the fans?

@lacaras4 that falls mostly into Pokemon Company territory and fault

The thing I learn from this gen is that I stopped trusting companies when they say they had a big announcement coming cause the chance of it being garbage is 95% true.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eKbeC41F2Uk last one

Willing to try this out, but more than likely I won’t pay any money into it. I love the concept of Pokémon more than I actually like the Pokémon games. They could make sooo many better Pokémon game genres — ghost catching Luigi’s Mansion type game, another turn based strategy like Conquest, advance wars with Pokémon, Open world pokemon like Breath of the Wild. I would even be cool with a mainline Pokémon that didn’t just go for the same ol storyline too.