The Pokémon Unite MOBA game is disappointing Nintendo fans in both China and the US
The upcoming mobile and Nintendo Switch game from Tencent and The Pokémon Company is attracting a lot of negative comments, but some say they’ll play it anyway
A new mobile Pokémon game is coming from Tencent, but Chinese gamers don’t seem very excited about it. That’s in spite of the fact that the game is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game, a popular genre in China.
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“Can a domestic game only be a MOBA and just re-skin [an existing game] to make money?” asked one person on the microblogging site Weibo, including a row of puke emojis and a Pokémon Unite hashtag.
Tencent announced the upcoming Pokémon Unite on Wednesday, saying the game would be released both on mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch. But unlike the original role-playing games, this new one from Tencent’s Timi Studios turns Pokémon into a five-on-five team battle game. Timi Studios is best known as the developer of the MOBA game Honour of Kings, designed to be a mobile version of League of Legends and also China’s biggest mobile game. The studio recently scored another hit with Call of Duty: Mobile, which has racked up 250 million downloads in nine months.
But even when getting to tap into the fanbase of an established hit franchise like Pokémon, Timi Studios appears to be sticking to what it knows. Pokémon Unite looks much like any other MOBA, pitting two teams of five characters against each other in a closed map. The goal is for a team to try to be the first to demolish the enemy’s base. In this case, players are choosing five Pokémon to defend their territory.
Pokémon Unite will be available on both smartphones and Nintendo Switch, but no release date has been announced. (Picture: Tencent)
However popular MOBAs might be in China, though, netizens venting their frustration online largely appeared unimpressed with the 11-minute online presentation of the new game from Tencent and The Pokémon Company. Some mockingly referred to the game as “Honour of Pokémon,” ridiculing the game for looking too much like Honour of Kings. And many worried that the game will turn out to be another free-to-play game that nickel-and-dimes players with microtransactions to unlock certain elements. It’s a common monetization strategy for mobile games in China.
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One popular Weibo user started a poll asking what people think of the new game. Nearly half of the more than 26,000 participating users voted that the game should “get lost.” Just over 4,000 people voted that they’re “looking forward” to the game.
Chinese gamers aren’t the only ones disappointed that Pokémon is being turned into yet another Tencent MOBA game. The trailer on YouTube has attracted a lot of negative comments. Some users suggested Tencent would ruin the Pokémon brand. The video has so far garnered 55,000 dislikes, nearly three times its 19,000 likes.
