Pokemon getting a 5v5 MOBA spin-off wasn’t on my 2020 bingo card. But hey! Pokemon Unite is a thing we’ll all be able to play at some undisclosed date. Naturally, everyone felt quite strongly about it.
Announced overnight, Pokemon Unite is a 5v5 MOBA featuring Pokemon. It’s being made by Tencent and Timi, the latter being the same developers responsible for Call of Duty Mobile.
The game showed 10 playable characters below. The original three starters feature, as well as Pikachu, Gengar, Snorlax, Clefairy and Lucario.
But since literally no-one had picked Pokemon Unite for the surprise announcement, the response was … not kind.
— Wombat ????⚪ (@Wombatties) June 24, 2020
— ANXSTY ☀️ (@ANXSTYVB) June 24, 2020
pokemon moba… this is just a bad dream pic.twitter.com/YatRl1uh92
— Shizu (@BepDelta) June 24, 2020
The Pokémon MOBA but with League of Legends chat. pic.twitter.com/XrJXzKiEte
— DBlackjack21 (@DBlackjack21) June 24, 2020
Why are we getting a Pokemon MOBA before a Pokemon MMO….?
— ☆Miss Kaiyoko Star☆ (@KaiyokoStar) June 24, 2020
excited for pokemon moba to bring us more gems like this pic.twitter.com/9pRT56nwQV
— kiwami knifes (@proxidog) June 24, 2020
pokemon fans: give us let’s go johto/sinnoh remakes/an mmo
the pokemon company: here’s a pokemon moba, hope you like it
pokemon fans: pic.twitter.com/AUn3wL5qpG
— daniel (@hawkeyeye_) June 24, 2020
— Nibel (@Nibellion) June 24, 2020
The Pokémon community seems to not like the idea of a Pokémon MOBA…
Well I’m still excited for it! ???? pic.twitter.com/3QzCMRLgyc
— ???????????????????????????????????? (@GoldenboyFTW) June 24, 2020
all of us waking up at 6am just to see a pokemon moba game pic.twitter.com/JPZb1jV9o0
— Star★Salts (@starsalts) June 24, 2020
A Pokemon MOBA. 2020 just keeps piling it on https://t.co/rSxtGA4Usb
— DansGaming (@Dansgaming) June 24, 2020
Some users were confused by the “free to start” terminology, which Nintendo previously used when announcing Pokemon Cafe Mix recently.
I do like that the new Pokemon Moba is introducing a new business model.
Free-to-Start
Gives me some new ideas for our future games:
Free-to-Think-About
Free-to-Look-at-but-not-Touch
Free-to-Play-in-a-Dream
Free-to-Whisper-About-but-Pay-to-Talk-About
— Dan Fornace (@danfornace) June 24, 2020
The trailer on the official Pokemon channel has copped a similar reaction, with almost three times the downvotes to upvotes. A lot of the criticism there was levelled at Tencent’s involvement, raising concerns about microtransactions.
The official Pokemon sub-reddit made its feelings fairly clear.
Not all fans were against the idea of a Pokemon MOBA. But some fans wondered why Pokemon Unite wasn’t announced during last week’s Direct. Others also noted that a Pokemon MOBA is principally fine — but they’d have preferred it be fleshed out into a bigger game than what’s ordinarily released on mobile.
Supporters of the game pointed out that Tencent has their own esports world tour, and that Pokemon Unite will open up the franchise to a massive audience in China.
I don’t even hate the idea of a Pokémon MOBA, the series has shown that they can deliver great experiences that no one asked for, hell, Pokémon Snap is a perfect example. But the way this announcement was framed couldn’t have been worse. Why couldn’t they just do one direct?
— вʟм | Ultima (@UltimaShadowX) June 24, 2020
My issue isn’t that it’s a Pokémon MOBA,
It’s that u can tell it’s a super mobile-pocket Edition style Moba. Which tend to be just kinda Wtv.
— GamesCage – The Hype Guy (@OnTheDownLoTho) June 24, 2020
Pokemon moba is cool. I wish gamers would get over their “phone games are bad” mantra so we can get some actual amazing games on the world’s most popular device rather than weird ftp stuff
— BDG | Yohosie (@yohosiefgc) June 24, 2020
Even though I’m not blown away, I think a free-to-play Pokémon MOBA has the potential to do REALLY well and if it ends up succeeding, maybe that’ll give Pokémon Company the push they need to finally make an open world RPG or a MMO.
We’ll see. ????
— RogersBase (@RogersBase) June 24, 2020
Was extremely happy when I saw that Pokemon Unite was a MOBA, not so happy when I saw the gameplay. Hopefully I’ll still enjoy it
— shofu (@shofu) June 24, 2020
A Pokémon MOBA that is:
– Free to Play
– On Switch and mobile with crossplay
– 5v5
– Developed by tencent (opening it to a the huge Chinese audience)
– Made by a company that has an esports world tourIf the game is fun/deep, then it could get huge with all this going for it
— Dr Bunney (@PG_SamuraiPanda) June 24, 2020
Pokémon Unite looks super fun! I’m a mobile guy and a Switch fanatic so this looks like it it’ll be great for me and the boys to try out.
I totally DID NOT expect a Pokémon MOBA but it makes perfect sense.
— ???????????????????????????????????? (@GoldenboyFTW) June 24, 2020
Honestly a Pokemon MOBA or Battle Royale from Tencent sounds sick as fuck so long as it isnt mobile only. The Chinese already have all my data whats wrong with a little more
— connor (@subtoconnorpls) June 24, 2020
Also, this tweet aged rather well:
Can we get a Pokémon MOBA?
— 100T Nadeshot (@Nadeshot) August 26, 2018
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