Pokémon Masters: Everything we know so far

Another new Pokémon game is coming to mobile, this time is a little different though

In a surprise Pokémon event on May 28, the Pokémon Company announced multiple new products. Some of them are pretty out there, like the Pokémon Go Plus + — it's an activity tracker that includes sleep tracking — which is supposed to help you train Pokémon in your sleep... weird.

An exciting piece of news though is the talk of a new Pokémon game, designed for mobile phones. Pokémon Masters, made by DeNA — the makers of Mario Run and Mario Kart Tour — is a battle game that you play in portrait mode and features a lot of familiar faces.

What's the game about?

Very little is known about the game right now except DeNA and the Pokémon Company has aimed to bring all of the Trainers you have ever played in any of the Pokémon games into one game in a grand battle. The game started out as an idea from Game Freak, to have "all the Pokémon Trainers, past and present" in one single video game.

DeNA was asked to take on the project and Pokémon Masters was born. The game is still in development, and more news will be available in June according to the Pokémon Company.

What's the gameplay like?

From what little we have seen the gameplay is a fairly simplistic battle system where you choose three Trainers and their partner Pokémon to face off against three others. This sounds like each Trainer only gets to use one Pokémon rather than having a selection for each Trainer. This means Misty will only ever use Togepi, Ash will always Pikachu, and Brock will always use Onyx. I think this has been done so they can create signature attacks for each team.

In terms of combat, it looks fairly simple. each of the Trainers has three different things they can do in battle; the main attack, a potion, and what looks to be the signature attack move. This signature is likely to need charging as you fight with the main attack. Potions could be used for healing your Trainers or for buffing them, though if Pokémon Masters is like other games like this then some of the Trainers may have a healing move as their special ability.

By the looks of the screenshots, you have a power meter at the bottom. This suggests that your power is shared across Trainers, so you will have to pick which Trainer you want to use for their special attack. We don't know if the game is turn-based or not but it looks like it will be. If it isn't, then it would end up being a button mash game which wouldn't be fun. That's really all we know so far from the gameplay, but we will update it as we know more.

Will it be a free game?

It seems likely. DeNA has already made two games for Nintendo, both of which are free-to-play but contain microtransactions. It seems likely this will be the same. Microtransactions are the preferred method for mobile gaming now so we are all prepared to have to buy pokécoins or something similar, aren't we?

When will we be able to play?

The release date is currently extremely vague. All we know is that Pokémon Masters is due for release in 2019 and that we will hear more about it in June. We don't know if they will share information on June 5 at the Pokémon Sword and Shield event but it seems likely they will do a separate event later in the month.

Pokémon Masters has a lot of people excited. It's always great when a new Pokémon game arrives and it's even more exciting when it's a completely new way to play. Watch this space for more news.

Get ready for Pokémon Masters

We may not be able to get you the game early but we can help you get ready for the gaming sessions that are to come.