The Pokémon Company and Tencent today debuted Pokémon Unite, a strategic team-based battle game for mobile and Switch.

The announcement was made during a Pokémon Present digital event with Pokémon Company President and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara introducing the new title. News of a partnership between the two firms was revealed last July, with several games expecting to come out of the deal, Pokémon Unite seemingly being the first.

The "free-to-start" game feature five-versus-five multiplayer combat that sees players scoring points as they look to level up their Pokémon. From this, Pokémon can learn new moves and evolve to the next evolution stage.

Pokémon Unite has been developed by Tencent's TiMi Studios, who previously worked on Call of Duty: Mobile and Honor of Kings.

Honor of Pokémon

Early gameplay appears to be similar to that of Tencent's Honor of Kings, which has continued to be one of the top-grossing games in Asia. With this, The Pokémon Company will be looking to recreate the enormous success achieved by Tencent in that sector, as well as the ongoing success of Pokémon GO globally. 

Pokémon Unite will launch on Nintendo Switch and mobile devices and will support cross-platform play functionality.

A release date was not disclosed but Ishihara did confirm that more details would be revealed in the future regarding launch.

This is the second digital presentation from The Pokémon Company, after the firm revealed Pokémon Smile, Pokémon Cafe Mix and a Pokémon Snap sequel last week.

Earlier this year, we spoke to Tencent TiMi Studios international business director Vincent Gao and Call of Duty: Mobile game director Leo Yao on a range of subjects including its Pokémon partnership.