The latest Pokémon Presents livestream has brought with it a swathe of updates and announcements for the franchise, from multiple new animated series to a Pokémon cruise ship. On the gaming side, meanwhile, a whopping five mobile games were discussed.
While no brand-new mobile titles were revealed, each of the five mobile games is getting a noteworthy update, including the recently released Pokémon Sleep.
Updating the mobile catalogue
After promoting the upcoming Detective Pikachu Returns for Switch, The Pokémon Company’s next game shown was the heaviest hitter in its mobile catalogue, Pokémon Go. Following on from the seventh anniversary in July, London, Osaka and New York are all hosting Go Fest events this month with a remote event to follow, through which players can obtain the Mythical Diancie for the first time in-game.
New species from the latest main series games, Scarlet and Violet, were also teased for later this year.
Continuing an overarching Scarlet and Violet theme, Café Remix is also adding Paldean Pokémon Tatsugiri.
In Unite - a cross-platform MOBA for mobile and Switch - a new battle mode where players face "an onslaught of wild Pokémon" is being added, as is the ability to unlock the ever-popular Mewtwo.
Next, it was revealed that in the runup to Pokémon Masters EX’s fourth anniversary, Nemona will be crossing over from Switch into mobile, changing up the gameplay formula with a brand-new Sprint type. She and Pawmot were added to Masters in a shadow drop immediately after the presentation, now available via the gacha.
Victor and Spectrier, meanwhile, will be available by completing a new event, making them easily accessible to all 50 million players.
To round off the mobile reveals, Pokémon Sleep was given the spotlight again – finally in the hands of the public after a four-year wait. The game released last month and is now introducing a Good Sleep Day event, through which players (or sleepers?) will meet more Pokémon.
Overall, Pokémon discussed as many mobile games as Switch titles this time around, suggesting quite a different internal approach to the platform than that of Nintendo.
