Yesterday, The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon Unite, the product of its partnership with Tencent and TiMi Studios. Unfortunately, the announcement clearly did not mean fans’ expectations. After only a day of existence, the Pokémon Presents that revealed Pokémon Unite is Nintendo’s most-disliked YouTube video to date.
Currently, Pokémon Unite‘s reveal presentation is sitting at over 140,000 dislikes. This places it well above Nintendo’s former record-holder, Metroid Prime: Federation Force. The Metroid Prime: Federation Force reveal trailer from E3 2015 has over 95,000 dislikes. However, it is worth noting that the Pokémon reveal has 80,000 likes – much more than Metroid‘s paltry 10,000. So despite the large pushback against Pokémon Unite, fans appear to have had a somewhat mixed reception to the game overall.
Pokémon Unite is an upcoming MOBA game reminiscent of League of Legends. It pits teams of Pokémon against one another in five-versus-five battles, where they will attempt to overtake opponents’ scoring areas. Naturally, the gameplay of Unite is quite different from what most traditional Pokémon fans know and love. Nevertheless, it still features some familiar mechanics, like leveling up, evolving, and catching wild Pokémon.
Why does Pokémon Unite have so many dislikes?
The surge of dislikes on Pokémon Unite‘s trailer is likely because it amounted to an underwhelming reveal for many viewers. One week prior, The Pokémon Company president and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara hosted another Pokémon Presents livestream. It included multiple new game reveals, most notably including New Pokémon Snap, along with a new event for Sword and Shield.
Following that first presentation, Ishihara confirmed a second one, with its focus being a totally new project. Since this new title was special enough to get its own Pokémon Presents, many fans had high expectations of what it would be. Popular predictions included Generation 4 remakes and Generation 2 remakes in the Let’s Go! style. So when fans saw Pokémon Unite, something very different from what they’d hoped for, a flood of dislikes ensued.
