On June 24th, The Pokémon Company caught fans across the world by surprise and announced their all-new and upcoming video game title – Pokémon Unite – through an eleven minute YouTube video featuring the CEO of The Pokémon Company himself. A day later, the video has become the most disliked video in the history of Nintendo.
The video featured some words from Tsunekazu Ishihara – the president and CEO of The Pokémon Company – followed by a gameplay presentation of Pokémon Unite, which he himself participated in.
Like most other MOBAs out there, Pokémon Unite is a 5v5 co-op game set in the vast world of Pokémo. Players have to select one Pokémon each from a pool and engage in combat against the enemy team in an arena. Each Pokémon has a unique set of skills which have to be utilized by the players to gain an advantage.
The gameplay presentation featured some of the most popular Pokémon in action like Pikachu, Lucario and Snorkax. The combat mechanics are similar to that of League but the skillsets, map and objectives seem to be different from the revealed gameplay.
However, fans didn’t seem to like the gameplay, as the number of dislikes in the video kept skyrocketing, and only a day later is standing on the brink of hitting 150k dislikes. Many hardcore Pokémon fans are complaining that although the concept of the game is good, the execution is simply bad. Some also complained that the game is way below expectations, and falls bland compared to their other upcoming new projects like the Pokémon Sword and Shield: Isle of Armor expansion, Pokémon Smile, and Pokémon Cafe.
The Pokémon Company has revealed that Pokémon Unite is set to be a free-to-play game across the world and will be available for mobile phones and Nintendo Switch. However, no specific release date has been scheduled for the game.
