15,000 screaming fans. The world’s best Pokémon players. Thousands of eyes around the world. This is what Pokémon Champions was made for.
As I sit across from Masaaki Hoshino, the director of Pokémon Champions, he’s watching the tournament on his phone before our interview begins. His love for competitive Pokémon is unquestionable. As passionate as he is about talking about Pokémon Champions, I get the sense he’d prefer to be sitting in the crowd watching the action.
The 2026 Pokémon World Championships were the coming-out party for the mobile and Nintendo Switch competitive battler. After launching earlier in the year on console and later on mobile, Pokémon Champions is the exclusive home of the Pokémon Video Game Championships.
This means that even when Pokémon Winds and Waves are released, next year’s Pokémon World Championships will be contested in Pokémon Champions. Pokémon Champions has become the place where players go to experience traditional Pokémon battling.
Earlier this month, the game director of Champions, Kazumasa Iwao, suggested it was developed partially for players who have “been enjoying the existing style of Pokémon battle for decades,” as the core RPGs changed battle styles in recent years. This sentiment was shared by Shigeki Morimoto, Game Freak‘s long-time battle director and the architect of the Pokémon battle system.
I ask Hoshino for his thoughts on Pokémon Champions’ role in maintaining this legacy for players.
“Personally, I love Pokémon battles, and part of the reason why I joined The Pokémon Company is for Pokémon battles,” he tells me. “I would love to keep turn-based battles around like forever, regardless of other Pokémon battle styles out there. From that standpoint, I believe that as long as Pokémon Champions is around, turn-based battles will be kind of preserved and will continue forever.”
Pokémon Champions isn’t just aimed at long-time players, however. Hoshino says he’s keen to bring a newer generation of Pokémon fans to this style of battling, as well as fans who have enjoyed the core RPGs but have never dabbled with the more hardcore elements. He tells me this is part of why only a select number of Pokémon are available in the game.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/pokemon-champions-director-vows-to-keep-turn-based-battles-as-single-player-is-ruled-out/
