The Pokémon Company just streamed an announcement on Nintendo Direct that included the announcement of three Pokémon games (well, technically five).
The first part of the stream unveiled the first Pokémon game for the Nintendo Switch. The game will be Pokkén Tournament DX, a deluxe version of the Wii U fighting game. This new version will include five new playable characters: Darkrai, Scizor, Empoleon, Croagunk and Decidueye. This brings some diversity to the previously very Generation One-heavy roster, as well as including a Pokémon from the Seventh Generation, which wasn’t a thing when the original Pokkén Tournament became available worldwide in early 2016.
The new version of the game will also include new modes, such as 3 Vs. 3 Team Battles. There will also be three new kinds of online matches: Ranked Match is described as “a serious mode in which you fight others to improve your rank,” Friendly Match is “a casual battle mode that won’t affect your rank” and Group Match is “a friends-only battle mode.” Pokkén Tournament DX will be available for the Switch on September 22.
Pokkén Tournament DX will make its first public appearance next week at E3, where a tournament for the game will be held. First, a playable demo of the game will be accessible to attendees on Tuesday, June 13. The next day, Wednesday, June 14, the game’s invitational tournament will start at 10:30AM PST. The tournament will be streamed live by Nintendo, just as with their Splatoon 2 and ARMS tournaments, also taking place at E3.
The next part of the announcement was for the newly announced Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon. Once again, we see Game Freak taking the sequel route we saw with Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 rather than a third installment strategy the franchise was known for for its first four Generations. Not much was revealed about these new games, other than that the games will take place in the same world as Sun and Moon, but will feature a different story with Pokémon unavailable in the original games, such upgraded versions of Solgaleo and Lunala. Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be available for the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld consoles on November 17.
Lastly, it was announced that Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver will be made available on the 3DS via virtual console on September 22. These games will also be compatible with Pokémon Bank, so you can transfer whichever Pokémon you catch in the games to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon when they come out a couple of months later.