Earlier this week, The Pokemon Company revealed Pokemon Unite, a new game that is essentially League of Legends with Pokemon. Unfortunately, the response to the game has been largely negative, with fans bombarding the reveal presentation with dislikes.
At the time of this writing, the Pokemon Unite reveal presentation has a staggering 137,000 dislikes versus 79,000 likes. This makes it the most-disliked video in the history of The Pokemon Company's YouTube channel. Needless to say, a lot of Pokemon fans weren't happy about the reveal, though it may be more about how the game was presented versus whether or not they think it will be any fun to play.
The Pokemon Company hyped up its June 24 Pokemon Presents event, teasing a "big project" for fans. Pokemon fans took this to mean that The Pokemon Company was going to unveil the next main series Pokemon games, like Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes or Pokemon Let's Go Johto. Based on the sheer number of dislikes on the video, few were expecting The Pokemon Company to reveal a mobile Pokemon MOBA.
However, had The Pokemon Company revealed Pokemon Unite during its June 17 Pokemon Presents event, it likely wouldn't have been criticized nearly as much. For the uninitiated, The Pokemon Company hosted a Pokemon Presents event earlier in the month that showcased a number of Pokemon products, including the Pokemon Smile toothbrush game and the highly-anticipated New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch. The presentation was relatively short, so it's unclear why The Pokemon Company felt the need to hold off on showing Pokemon Unite until a week later.
It will be interesting to see if The Pokemon Company changes the way it handles reveals in future, and if this backlash inspires it to move forward with some of the Pokemon projects fans expected to see instead. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes seem like an inevitability, though Pokemon Let's Go Johto games are less of a guarantee.
For now, Game Freak is focused on producing Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC, so those looking for main series Pokemon experiences will have to get their fill from those. More main series Pokemon games should be in the pipeline, though - it's just a matter of when.
Pokemon Unite is in development for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch.