'Pokémon Unite' combines Pokémon with 'League of Legends'

'Pokémon Unite' looks like a classic MOBA game.

Image: the pokemon company

By Kellen Beck2020-06-24 13:39:50 UTC

A brand new Pokémon game was announced Wednesday, combining the Pokémon we all know and love with the strategic, competitive combat of a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game a-la League of Legends or Dota 2.

Pokémon Unite is a multiplatform game coming to both Nintendo Switch and smartphones, developed in partnership between the Pokémon Company and Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studios. It's a 5v5 competitive game where players play as different pokémon, battling enemies with their unique moves and trying to capture points throughout the battlefield.

Like other MOBA games, characters level up throughout the matches and gain new abilities as the games progress, but with Pokémon Unite your pokémon can actually evolve, which adds a fun twist to the popular MOBA genre.

The objective of Pokémon Unite, to stand at different areas to capture points throughout the match, is also different from most other MOBAs where the objective is usually to destroy the enemy team's base.

Aside form that, everything looks pretty par for the course for the genre. Even the aesthetics of this game seem to mirror one of the most popular MOBAs, League of Legends. 

To see Pokémon Unite in action, check out the live reveal of the game, where at about the seven minute mark they show a truncated match:

Pokémon Unite will be available to start for free with the option to spend money and unlock more features like additional characters to play as.