Pokémon’s annual World Championship is set to take place in San Francisco next month, where the best of the best in the series’ video games and its TCG gather from around the globe to claim a sick trophy and worldwide notoriety. However, the 2026 event will also be the last time one of those competitive communities takes part in the event. The Pokémon Company has announced it is dropping one game from the line-up in the upcoming season: Pokémon Unite.
The Switch and mobile MOBA launched in 2021. While it didn’t become a popular spin-off like Pokémon Go or the trading card game, it has received regular updates to its roster and meta for five years now and retains a dedicated fanbase. I booted the game up recently and was reminded of how I’d lost hundreds of hours to it with my friends when it first launched. We were hooked, and its relatively simple, low-stakes MOBA gameplay, compared to genre heavy-weights like Dota 2 and League of Legends, made it approachable. It also lets us play as some of our favorite ‘mons.
However, it sounds like Pokémon Unite will break off from the World Championships starting in 2027. It will still have a competitive scene, just not one that’s a part of the Championship Series:
The Pokémon Unite Championship Series will no longer be a part of the Championship Series in the 2027 season.
There will be a standalone in-person Pokémon Unite event planned to take place in Japan, with paid travel for qualified teams. Additional details, including qualification and travel support information, will be announced at a later date on the Pokémon UNITE official site.
Play! Pokémon would like to thank all the dedicated teams, competitors, and organizations in the Pokémon Unite community for the spirit and passion they have brought to battles around the world.
Joe Merrick, the webmaster of Pokémon fansite and database Serebii, speculates that low enrollment and streaming viewer numbers may have played a part in the company’s decision to drop it. For comparison’s sake, the VOD of the Unite stream from last year’s event accumulated around 135,772 views, which is less than half what equivalent streams for Scarlet and Violet finals had in the same year.
Unite isn’t the only game getting a bit of shakeup next year, as Pokémon Go’s format is changing to a 3v3 team setup.
Changes are coming to the 2027 Pokémon Go World Championships. The tournament will feature 3-on-3 team play, with teams formed from the pool of qualified players.
Qualification for Worlds for individual players is not changing. Players will still receive direct invitations based on event performance and Championship Points accumulated over the 2027 season.
More information on the 2027 Pokémon Go World Championships will be released at a later date.
This year’s World Championships in San Francisco will be the first to feature Pokémon Champions as the primary game for competitive play, though it’s unclear if the 2027 event will feature Pokémon Winds and Waves in its tournament line-up. The Generation X games are set to come to Switch 2 next year, but we haven’t heard anything more specific than that, so we don’t yet know if the RPGs will be out in time for the competition, whenever it’s held.