The Pokémon Company today unveiled new information about its upcoming mobile game, Pokémon Masters. The new game was created in partnership with DeNA, the mobile developer behind official Nintendo apps like Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

In Pokémon Masters, players will be tasked with forming a team of Pokémon Trainers to engage in 3-on-3 real-time battles with other AI Trainers. The game takes place on the island of Pasio, a place where the typical rules of Pokémon battles are different than other regions.

pokemon masters
Instead of turn-based battles, Pokémon Masters will focus on a feature called "sync pairs," which lets players team up with well-known Trainers from previous Pokémon games, and their partner Pokémon. There will be 65 total sync pairs to recruit in the game at launch, and additional sync pairs will release at a later date.

The game involves players forming a team of three total sync pairs, and fighting in real-time 3-versus-3 battles against other AI-controlled sync pairs. This means that the typical aspect of most other Pokémon games -- collecting Pokémon -- will not be present in Pokémon Masters.

Pokémon Masters introduces a new way to battle in the Pokémon world. Players will command a squad of three sync pairs in real-time team battles and release a barrage of moves—all while the AI opponent unleashes theirs at the same time.

For the very first time in a Pokémon game, players can also direct Trainers in battle to use moves and healing items to increase a Pokémon’s stats. In addition to standard moves, players can occasionally deploy sync moves—powerful attacks performed by specific sync pairs.

Pokémon Masters will launch as a free-to-start game with in-app purchases on iOS and Android devices sometime later this summer.

Tag: Pokemon

Top Rated Comments

Mikey44 Avatar
49 months ago
Which makes perfect sense unfortunately... they’d be cannibalizing their own handheld sales if they did port a full-blown Pokémon game over to mobile. BUT! I’m sure they wonder how much money they could make if they did do that. It would kill their handheld market but perhaps they could make more money since the mobile market is obviously bigger. It really is only a matter of time til their handheld does die, as sad as that may be.
Absolutely, which is kind of my argument. They won't do it because it does. I think Nintendo won't likely go the way of Sega, but will continue to experiment and push different hardware techniques and ideas. I mean the Nintendo Switch has been a huge success, which came as a surprise to many people after the failure of the Wii U. I think Nintendo fills a portion of the market that isn't met by Sony or Microsoft.

They have, and will continue to have phenomenal franchises. Zelda, Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, Animal Crossing, etc ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nintendo_franchises'). They can rely on those to sell hardware, and while I don't like being limited to Nintendo's hardware always, I do think that it allows them to provide a great/unique experience with their games.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gravydog316 Avatar
49 months ago
I wish this games existed when I was younger. Now I don’t feel like is a good use of my time, I should try it again I guess.
don't bother now, pops.
I will destroy you.
fair warning.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cknibbs Avatar
49 months ago
If you want something like this, you will likely need to pay out the nose for it. Nintendo isn't a fan of porting their games over to another piece of hardware, unless it says Nintendo on it.
It would have been awesome to see Pokemon Masters be more of a game that integrated with Pokémon Home and allowed you to battle through old gyms and such with Pokémon you have stored online. Instead of trying to be it’s own game it would be an addition to sword/shield.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GeoStructural Avatar
49 months ago
I wish this games existed when I was younger. Now I don’t feel like is a good use of my time, I should try it again I guess.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mrfoof82 Avatar
49 months ago
Animal Crossing has been a real $$$$ sucker so I’m a bit worried about this.
I watch two Fire Emblem Heroes streamers readily who are top tier worldwide in competitiveness (including rank 1 worldwide), but haven’t put a cent into the game — one doesn’t even put 10 hours a week into the game.

As for Animal Crossing I spent about $5 before I figured out I could get everything I wanted eventually (not right now, eventually, and you can’t get EVERYTHING) without spending a dime.

Nintendo/DeNA and Intelligent Systems have created games where you can do everything you want for free — and be one of the top ranked, but it will require a lot of analysis, community research, and immense patience and planning for you to get there — something 99.9% of players won’t do.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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