The Pokémon Press Conference, livestreamed on May 28, announced several interesting new games and apps featuring your favourite pocket monsters. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on your games console, phone, or even in your bed, you’ll be able to play. You can watch the video below (although it is in Japanese), or read on for our own summary of what got announced.
Detective Pikachu on Switch
Before it was a movie, Detective Pikachu was a 3DS game, in which you and your deerstalker-wearing talking Pikachu solved mysteries. The game and the movie are unrelated aside from the premise, but the newly announced sequel for the Nintendo Switch will follow what you saw on screen closely, except there is going to be an all-new ending.
Pokémon Home
Pokémon Home isn’t really a game, but it’s heavily linked into others. It’s a cloud service interface between several different titles, including Pokémon Go and the upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield Switch games. This looks like it will let you transfer your beloved creatures from the games you caught them in into Home, and in Sword and Shield’s case import them, so you can enjoy your whole collection on the latest mainline Pokémon RPG once Home launches in 2020.
Pokémon Masters
For smartphone gamers, Pokémon Masters has been announced, although there isn’t a lot to look at yet. Developed by DeNA, this game promises to bring together trainers from across the franchise’s history to fight in teams of three against other trainers, using their signature Pokémon.
The brief clip from the livestream (29:54 - 30:21) shows the original anime stars Ash, Misty and Brock with Pikachu, Starmie and Onyx, including Brock’s super move in which he bursts out of his shirt and commands Onyx to pelt the opponent with a shower of boulders. This is definitely a unique experience to keep an eye on as it develops further, so keep your eyes peeled in June when we will be hearing more about it before its release later this year.
Pokémon Sleep
Finally, after a long day of training, battling and catching ‘em all, you deserve a suitably Pokémon-style rest. Pokémon Sleep is a gamified sleep tracker, developed by Pokémon Go creators Niantic. It uses an upgraded version of the Pokémon Go Plus wearable, which you place on your pillow to measure how peacefully you slept.
It’s coming out in 2020, but in the meantime, Niantic’s adding a bunch of Snorlax to Pokémon Go, who will all be taking a nap when you encounter them until June 3. After you’ve captured one, it will be able to learn the exclusive move Yawn.
As well as some new Pokémon clothing, the other major piece of news is that there’s going to be a livestream about Sword and Shield on June 5, taking place at 2PM GMT/6AM PT/9AM ET. So mark your calendars for a week’s time to find out even more exciting Pokémon news.
