You can never have too much of a good thing. That’s clearly The Pokémon Company’s mantra, judging by its plans for 2019 and beyond. Sword and Shield, core series entries headed to Switch later this year, are undoubtedly the headline attraction for Pokéfans this year but the pair are far from the only new arrivals pencilled in to be with us in the near future. Pokémon Masters, a new mobile title in development at DeNA, is on course to supplement your summer with a brand new Pokémon experience.
Unlike Niantic’s existing Pokémon Go, which established its popularity on augmented reality gameplay, Pokémon Masters is all about battling your favourite ‘Mons in an all-new location. Set on the (presumably man-made) artificial island of Pasio, players flock to its shores in order to test their mettle against the world’s fiercest Trainers. Iconic characters like Brock, Misty, Red and Blue will all feature in-game, for which pre-registration is now open.
That doesn’t mean a whole lot, to be honest, though doing so will mean you receive notifications for when DeNA finally signals the arrival of launch day. It’s worth noting, however, that those in Singapore and Canada have access to a form of preview version from today onwards. Progress made in what appears to be a demo will carry over to the full release, so for all intents and purposes, this appears to be a soft launch as a means of testing the waters.
Regardless, DeNA is clearly edging ever-closer to a state in which Pokémon Masters is ready for global domination. As a means of preparing would-be players for the adventures that await, a series of instructional videos have been released. The first of which can be found above.
In related news, Pokémon Go recently received its latest content update only to have it pulled shortly thereafter. See here for all the details.