Pokémon Unite is a new MOBA coming out to the Nintendo Switch. Yes, you know what that means, a Pokémon MOBA is a thing now. Chinese mega-firm Tencent has begun production on the game. The game will release on both Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices, making it a pretty solid fit for the genre trends.
The visuals look pretty interesting, with Tencent clearly aiming to capture some of that feel that fans have come to love with the full 3D games in the franchise. Pokemon Unite is being developed by TiMi and will feature a variety of roster entries from the various generations of the mainline games.
Players will be able to duke it out in a tiered map with different lanes. Trainers will take their chosen Pokémon through these lanes and do battle with other Trainers, hoping to take control of the map in the process. It all sounds very MOBA in its design. The gameplay looks like a decent mix of speed and tactics, sure to please fans of the genre. The twists come in when talking about leveling up.
By borrowing conventions like learning new moves and evolutions from the base games, Tencent ant TiMi are hoping to capture some feeling of nostalgia from the fans in the audience pulled in by the label.
Pokémon Unite will support crossplay, incase you were wondering about that too. The Trainers in each match will be picked from the matchmaking pool based on skill, not the device they’re playing on. This means that players on Switch can match with those on mobile devices.
The full 11-minute gameplay presentation revealing the game can be seen below.
