Pokémon Champions gets release window as slew of mobile games land updates

• Pokémon Champions is expected to release in 2026.
• Pokémon Go, Masters, Unite, TCG Pocket and more are all in for new content updates.

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The second Pokémon Presents of 2025 has revealed new details about the competitive battling game Pokémon Champions, which is expected to launch in 2026.

It’s not every year that The Pokémon Company has enough news for multiple presentations within a 365-day period, but 2025 is one of them.

Among the announcements, the company showcased a real-world theme park, further details on this year’s Switch and Switch 2 games, updates across the series’ mobile catalogue and more.

Pokémon Champions was also featured, first revealed in the previous Pokémon Presents this February and launching next year on iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch.

Notably, no confirmation of a Switch 2 version was given during the broadcast.

Champions emerging

Pokémon Champions is being designed as a multiplatform hub for Pokémon battles, maintaining longstanding rules in a time when the series’ recent games have begun to experiment with alternate mechanics and battle systems.

2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus, for example, evolved the turn-based battle formula with certain moves allowing extra turns. That game lacked a PvP mode entirely.

Now, 2025’s big new release, Pokémon Legends: ZA, is further overhauling the traditional formula with real-time battles this October.

This means fully turn-based, classic competitive Pokémon battles remain relegated to three-year-old Switch games Scarlet and Violet, with their incomplete roster of Pokémon species.

However, Pokémon Champions provides an opportunity for players to compete in a title with fresh visuals, and one that can continue to be updated with new Pokémon, moves, abilities and more moving forward.

Furthermore, creatures caught in other games will be transferable into Champions, meaning players won’t have to start team building from scratch. That option is also available, though, to newcomers to the competitive scene or the Pokémon franchise as a whole, at the cost of in-game currency.

Gameplay showed that players will be able to teach their Pokémon new moves within Champions and edit their stats. Players will be able to store at least 30 Pokémon in-game.

The battles themselves are either ranked against random opponents or unranked in private rooms with friends. Single Battles and Double Battles are included.

Pokémon’s mobile conquest

The Pokémon Company’s mobile expansion has been a lucrative one this past decade, with Pokémon Go and TCG Pocket each surpassing $1 billion in lifetime player spending. Both titles received a mention during the Presents.

In Go, new Gigantamax forms were teased and a promo code was shared to direct fans towards its web shop. In TCG Pocket, fan-favourite Mega Evolved Pokémon were teased to be debuting this September, with the likes of Venusaur and Lucario getting powered-up forms.

Meanwhile, Pokémon Sleep is set to add a new area to explore and will rerun three of its four Legendary events – some of the game’s most lucrative events from its first two years.

Pokémon Café Remix is adding new pirate-themed costumes, Pokémon Unite is adding Legendary monsters Latios and Latias, and Pokémon Masters is getting a new gacha character, Carmine, making the move from Scarlet and Violet.

Of course, the presentation also focused on Pokémon Friends, which took the spotlight as a newly revealed puzzle game that shadow dropped immediately after the broadcast.