The Pokemon Company held a special press conference last night, during which no less than four new Pokemon games and apps/services were announced. Truly, we will never be free of this franchise.
The two new games are a Nintendo Switch sequel to the 3DS title Detective Pikachu (which was of course most recently adapted for the big screen), and a mobile game called Pokemon Masters, in which you battle through a selection of trainers from previous games.
There’s no footage or release date for Detective Pikachu yet, but we do know that it’ll follow on directly from the events of the 2016 game. Just be aware that the recent movie was only very loosely based on the 3DS game, so don’t expect a canonical sequel that picks up after the movie’s (very different) ending.
Pokemon Masters, meanwhile, is a new smartphone game coming from Nintendo mobile partner DeNA. The title will essentially serve as a who’s who of Pokemon’s greatest trainers, as players battle alongside and against Gym Leaders and rivals past, including Blue, Misty, Brock, and more.
Masters will feature 3v3 battles, and although it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing the traditional battle system from the core games, a press release promises “a casual but uniquely Pokémon experience” that’s been optimised for mobile devices.
We’ll be seeing more information on Pokemon Masters next month, and the game is expected to arrive on iOS and Android devices before the end of the year. Check out the reveal trailer below in the meantime.
The Pokemon Company also announced a new cloud based subscription service called Pokemon Home. This is essentially an upgraded version of Pokemon Bank, which itself allowed players to store their monsters from older games and transfer them into the latest releases.
Home then, will allow you to import your monsters from Bank, as well as anything you’ve caught in Pokemon GO, and Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee. Home will also be compatible with the upcoming Sword/Shield games for Switch.
Finally, there’s the adorable sounding Pokemon Sleep, which in my opinion very much marks the beginning of the Pokeapocalypse. This seemingly innocent smartphone app is due out 2020, and will “bring a gameplay experience unlike any other” by… monitoring your sleeping patterns and rewarding you for snoozing.
Pokemon GO developer Niantic is working on Sleep, and will release a new version of the Pokemon GO Plus accessory, called Pokemon GO Plus + (seriously). Plus + will monitor your steps during the day, and can then be placed on your pillow at night to track sleep. Yikes.
While there was no new info on the Switch Pokemon titles, a dedicated Nintendo Direct for Sword/Shield is coming at 2pm UK time on June 5.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.