Dive into Pokémon Unite

As its name suggests, Pokémon Unite is all about teaming up with other trainers and duking it out in colorful and creative arenas. With a focus on short, action-packed battles, this online multiplayer-focused brawler brings something completely new to the Pikachu-fronted franchise loved by millions around the world.

We caught up with the minds behind Pokémon Unite to understand more about this delightfully different Pokémon game.

A. We actually looked to Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games, as it’s a genre that’s now played and enjoyed all over the world. As a team, we felt that despite this popularity many games in the genre were still long and complicated to play, restricting their appeal.

A. The biggest challenge was making sure whatever we built was interesting to play, while still resolving the challenges the genre presented. To ensure we made something accessible, we removed any overly complex mechanics and restricted matches to 10 minutes.

We also introduced a scoring mechanism where the team with the most points wins. This helped give it a sport-like feel to matches and, we believe, makes the game easier to pick up. A lot of thought went into making this accessible for people who only know the Pokémon name and little else about games.

A. Despite building something different than a MOBA, many aspects common to the genre worked very well with Pokémon’s core gameplay. In our matches all players start at level one and rapidly level up during play – this approach fits nicely with Pokémon’s evolution mechanics.

Pokémon are also distinctive and instantly recognizable, so fans can tell just by looking if they’re a Supporter or Attacker type. This makes it easy to understand the core of Pokémon Unite’s team dynamics.

A. We’re planning on adding more Unite licenses a little at a time – we’re looking across all Pokémon and are picking them based on their role and fit. We’ll also be expanding Holowear outfit options for players, and a Spectate mode is on the way, alongside general tweaks to the game balance.