Pokémon Champions gets right to the fights

To celebrate the day almost 30 years ago when Pikachu pika’d his way into our hearts and minds, the Pokémon Company held a Pokémon Presents showcase highlighting what games and experiences to expect in the coming months. There were updates on Pokémon Legends: Z-A, a new season of Pokémon Concierge, and a totally new multiplayer game: Pokémon Champions.

While the reveal was light on the specifics, Pokémon Champions appears to a game focused solely on battling. Players will be able to import their ‘mons from Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, Pokémon Home, and other games into Pokémon Champions to use in battles against players around the world. There are restrictions however on the pocket monsters you can use. The fine print says that not every pokémon available in Home and elsewhere will be available in Champions and that pokémon obtain in Champions cannot be ported back to Home.

It seems like Champions a gamified version of the online battle simulators competitive Pokémon players use to test team composition and monster builds. The Pokémon Company was specific in that the game is coming to, “the Nintendo Switch family of systems” indicating this game might make an appearance on the forthcoming Switch 2. It’s also coming to Android and iOS.

Pokémon is a very malleable franchise, able to fit a wide variety of game genres that The Pokémon Company seems keen to experiment with. There was Pokken Tournament for the fighting game community, Pokémon UNITE for the MOBA fans, all the casual co-op and 1v1 experiences in the mainline games, and so much more. (Anybody remember Pokémon Conquest, the strategy RPG which was essentially Pikachu meets Nobunaga’s Ambition?) With Pokémon Champions, The Pokémon Company has found yet another way to reach gamers outside of its core games.