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
73 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
73 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
73 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
73 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
73 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)

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb 3

iOS 18.3 Leak Provides Clue About iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and iPad Air 7 Launch Timing

Wednesday January 22, 2025 9:39 am PST by
New information has surfaced that indicates the rumored iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and new iPad Air models are nearing launch. A private account on social media platform X today revealed that iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on all of those upcoming devices when they are released. It is still unclear exactly when the devices will launch, but this information suggests that Apple will...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...