At today’s press conference that was announced yesterday, The Pokémon Company made several announcements relating to the biggest money-maker on the planet. These new revelations included three new titles, clothes, and the return of an older game…sort of.
- That older game is Pokémon Quest China, a new version of last year’s mobile game for…well, China. Handled by NetEase, who handle Blizzard’s library and Minecraft in China, will be managing the game. China’s version will feature PvP play and new social features. It was also announced that NetEase will be localizing future Pokémon titles as well, although details are skint as to what those titles will be. It’s likewise unclear if these features are coming to non-Chinese versions of Pokémon Quest as well.
- Detective Pikachu will receive a new game for the Nintendo Switch. The conference promised a conclusion to the 3DS game’s story, but remained vague about if it was a full-on sequel or a simple re-release with added content. Regardless, the ending that the Switch game gives to the Detective Pikachu story will differ from that of the recent film.
- In 2014, Pokémon Bank allowed trainers to store their Pokémon from across the 3DS games and store them in a cloud-based account. For a small fee, naturally. Pokémon Home will expand this service to include Switch games and Pokémon GO. Interestingly, Home will also allow you to trade your pocket monsters directly from your phone. It’s a digital wallet, but for Pokémon! Pokémon Bank costs five USD a year, so it’s safe to say that a subscription fee will be necessary despite no announcement of the sort being made. It will release in 2020.
As illustrated by this handy-dandy graph they provided
- Speaking of Pokémon GO, do you remember how that game encouraged hundreds of thousands to leave their homes and socialise? Well, you better get read for the complete opposite of that. Pokémon Sleep is an upcoming mobile game that tracks your sleep and rewards you for your Van Winkling. No details were revealed regarding gameplay, but an accompanying device was revealed. The ‘Pokémon GO Plus+’ (yes, ‘Plus Plus’ is its actual name) is placed on your bed and tracks your sleeping patterns for rewards in both Sleep and GO, connecting its accelerometer to your mobile phone via bluetooth. The device, as its name suggests, will also function like the ‘Pokémon Go Plus’ and ‘Pokéball Plus’ hardware. You’ll be able to store a Pokémon inside and keep an ear out for PokéStops. It, and Pokémon Sleep, are set for release in 2020, and will be developed by Select Button – the company behind 2017’s Magikarp Jump.
- The final new game revealed was Pokémon Masters. Published by DeNA, the company behind almost all of Nintendo’s mobile forays, Masters is a no-nonsense battle simulator where the player battles and interacts with famous trainers from the series, including gym leaders. Aside from footage, we saw little of the game itself. We’ll learn more next month, though, with the game set to launch in 2019. Masters was apparently an idea of series art director Ken Sugimori’s:
Fun fact: #PokemonMasters began with a suggestion from Ken Sugimori of @GAMEFREAK_info, who wanted to create a game featuring all past and present Pokémon Trainers from the video games.
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) May 29, 2019
Stay tuned for more on Pokémon Masters. We’ll share additional info as soon as we can!
To be a master, Pokémon master
- To cap off the conference on a fancy-pants note, a previously Japan-only line of high-quality Pokemon shirts are coming to North America and Europe. 151 designs based on the Kanto zoology are available, and the shirts are fully-tailored with options for mix-and-match designs. If you’re game to import them, be warned: They’re pricey. You can check them out here.
- Other, smaller, announcements included Shibuya (a suburb in Tokyo) getting a Pokémon Center shop and a Pokémon GO Snorlax event to commemorate Pokémon Sleep’s announcement.
You can watch the full conference livestream on Twitch here.
