This year’s Pokemon Presents event didn’t have a lot of earth-shattering new game reveals, but The Pokemon Company still had some exciting news to share. Perhaps the biggest announcement from the presentation, aside from Pokemon Legends: Z-A‘s release date, was the reveal of Pokemon Champions, an all-new Pokemon spin-off for Nintendo Switch and mobile phones. This game is being developed by Game Freak and a newly-established company called The Pokemon Works. Although its reveal trailer had very little gameplay in it, official blog posts about Pokemon Champions provide a clearer picture of what the game is about.
Pokemon Champions is, in essence, a battle simulation game. It takes the core combat systems from the mainline Pokemon games and removes everything else. In Pokemon Champions, there are no locations to explore, no side quests to complete, and no characters to interact with; the only thing players can do is fight. The game is going to include three different battle modes at launch and will even feature Mega Evolution and Terastallization mechanics, much like the recent Pokemon installments. Although Pokemon Champions seems like it has a lot of potential, if there’s one game that needs to be free-to-play at launch, it’s this one.
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Pokemon Champions is Set to Repeat a Feat Not Seen Since Gen 4
Pokemon Champions seems to be closing a gap in the franchise present since Gen 4 as a new entry in a popular type of side game.
Pokemon Champions Should Be Free-to-Play on Nintendo Switch
Pokemon Champions’ NSO Requirement Suggests That It Will Be a Paid Game
The Pokemon Works and Game Freak have neither announced the pricing for Pokemon Champions, nor have they provided a release window for the game. However, fans have discovered some recent information that seems to suggest that it’ll be pay-to-play. According to an official press release on the Pokemon website, players will need to have an active Nintendo Switch Online membership in order to play Pokemon Champions on the Nintendo Switch. Like on PlayStation and Xbox, free-to-player multiplayer games typically don’t require NSO subscriptions; only paid ones do. If the same rules apply for Pokemon Champions, then the game will likely have a price tag of some sort, at least on the Nintendo Switch.
If Pokemon Champions is Pay-to-Play, It May Not Be as Successful as Pokemon Showdown
The Pokemon Company’s potential decision to make Pokemon Champions a pay-to-play title could hinder its success, especially since it has some stiff competition in the free-to-play space. Back in 2011, a group of Pokemon fans created a web-based, open-source battle simulation game called Pokemon Showdown, which functions very much like Pokemon Champions. Despite not being an official product from The Pokemon Company, it’s regularly used by competitive Pokemon players as a way to test out Pokemon teams before actually using them in a tournament. Since Pokemon Showdown lets players use any Pokemon they want with whatever setup they want, it’s a lot easier to experiment in this game than it is to experiment in a mainline Pokemon installment.
Judging by what’s been revealed so far, Pokemon Champions sounds like Game Freak’s long-awaited answer to Pokemon Showdown. Unfortunately, though, the game has deficiencies in some of the areas where Pokemon Showdown excels. One of the biggest issues with Pokemon Champions is that it won’t include all 1,000+ Pokemon at launch. Instead, there will only be a select number of Pokemon in the game. Players can transfer some of their Pokemon from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and Pokemon GO to Pokemon Champions, but not all of them will appear in the game. This is a major issue since it significantly limits the amount of experimentation that players can utilize during battles.
Pokemon Champions Going Free-to-Play Would Make Up For Its Limited Features Compared to Pokemon Showdown
If The Pokemon Company really wants Pokemon Champions to be a replacement for Pokemon Showdown, then it should, at the very least, make the game free-to-play. The limited number of Pokemon in the game is already disappointing enough, but the fact that it seemingly costs money on top of that could be a dealbreaker for some players. The Pokemon Company can attract a really large audience to Pokemon Champions, especially on mobile phones, as long as it doesn’t add an unnecessary paywall to it.
