Pokémon Champions is an upcoming free-to-play battle simulator that will become the new platform for competitive Pokémon play when it launches in April. As such, it basically has an entire pillar of the Pokémon community’s future in its hands. Details have been trickling out since last week’s 30th anniversary Pokémon Presents showcase, and here’s everything we know so far.
So what is Pokémon Champions anyway?
Champions is not quite the RPG you might be used to with Pokémon. It’s meant to be a platform for competitive battles, whether that be in official tournaments or casual play. You can either transfer Pokémon over from the Pokémon Home storage app or “recruit” monsters in the game itself. You’ll only be able to recruit and train Pokémon in-game by using Victory Points, which you can earn through ranked battles. You can’t buy them outright, however, so there doesn’t seem to be a shortcut to making a team. You’ll have to either build them within Champions or transfer them from other games through Home. The Pokémon you can recruit will rotate from the in-game shop, and you’ll be able to choose between either temporarily recruiting them for no cost once a day, or paying 1000 VP to keep them on your team. It’s unclear at this point how easy or difficult it is to reach that number, or if the number will change depending on which Pokémon you’re looking at buying.
Other than VP, you can also recruit Pokémon using items called Quick Coupons and Teammate Tickets, which you can earn through in-game missions.
The game will support ranked, casual, and private battles, so you can get sweaty with competitive players, try out your team online without pressure against randoms, or just face off against friends.
If I can’t buy Victory Points, what are the in-app purchases?
There’s a one-time purchase starter pack that will give you additional box spaces, music options, and training vouchers, though we don’t know how much that will cost yet. The game gives you 30 free box spaces by default, with the starter pack adding an additional 50. There will also be a membership subscription that will add more storage and team slots, access to additional missions and gifts, and more battle music. We also don’t know the price for that yet.
Champions will also include battle passes you’ll level through by playing ranked games, which will include customization items for your avatar, Pokémon, and even some battle items like Mega Stones that will also be available in the store.
There’s Mega Evolution?
It looks like Champions will support various battle gimmicks from across the series. Mega Evolution from X, Y, and Z-A have been shown off, as well as Terastalyzing from Scarlet and Violet. It seems the seasonal ruleset will rotate different mechanics in and out of play, with Mega Evolution kicking things off in April.
So I have the Pokémon I want, how do I train them in Champions?
Here’s where things somehow get more convoluted. It appears that Champions’ training options are also tied to VP, which means using them to do actions like changing a Pokémon’s moves, nature, abilities, and stats. We’ll know more about how this all works when the game arrives, but if all the team-building tools in Champions are tied to an in-game currency, I could see most people opting to train and trade Pokémon in a game like Scarlet/Violet rather than grinding through Champions to make these tweaks.
That sounds pretty complicated for something that’s supposed to streamline the competitive process?
Right now, the community is pulling information from the English and Japanese official Pokémon Champions websites, and despite the game launching next month, we still have remarkably little information about how all these systems work together and could ultimately cost beyond short summaries. Hopefully The Pokémon Company has a guided tour planned that will take folks through the game’s various systems and explain how they interact with the Pokémon that players have been using in competitive games. There are still a lot of questions and concerns, but we’ll know more when Champions comes to Switch in April.