The video announcement for Pokémon Unite has been unceremoniously slammed on YouTube – so much so, that it’s become one of the most disliked videos of all time for a Nintendo property.
After teasing a brand new announcement last week, where The Pokémon Company showed off New Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Café Mix, fans were eagerly anticipating something special. Instead, they were treated to a free-to-play mobile and Nintendo Switch MOBA game in association with the Chinese publishing giant Tencent, which has earned it 164,000 dislikes at the time of writing.
So what is Pokémon Unite? Well, it’s a five-versus-five team battle game where you face-off in an arena and attempt to control various key points. Your Pokémon can level up and gain new moves, but there’s no type advantage or turn-based combat. It’s coming to mobiles and Nintendo Switch, and you can check out the announcement video below.
Tyrantrum
As spotted by Bronyficent on the Nintendo Switch subreddit, Pokémon Unite has now claimed the unfortunate title of Nintendo’s most disliked video – although there is a caveat. The video was uploaded to The Pokémon Company’s channel, who are largely independent from Nintendo, despite Nintendo owning a 33% stake in the company.
Still, it’s now dethroned the likes of Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which has amassed 94,000 dislikes; last year’s Nintendo Treehouse: Live for Pokémon Sword and Shield with 89,000 dislikes; and the Byleth Smash Bros Ultimate DLC reveal, which has a total of 86,000 dislikes as of writing.
Don't Digglet
Does this mean that Pokémon Unite is dead on arrival, then? Well no, not necessarily. Both Pokémon Sword and Shield went on to sell incredibly well, and although Byleth wasn’t a popular choice for Super Smash Bros Ultimate (please, no more Fire Emblem characters, Sakurai), we’d wager a guess it didn’t stop people from downloading her on mass. Even Nintendo’s own announcement video for Nintendo Switch Online was greeted with 84,000 dislikes, however, the service has gone on to gain millions of subscribers.
The angry reaction from fans seems to be more towards the expectation built up by The Pokémon Company, rather than the game itself. After showing off New Pokémon Snap, which conversely has 15,000 likes and only 160 dislikes, fans were rightly miffed when the big wait was for a spin-off game loosely based on the Pokémon formula. A misunderstanding, then, but one that's clearly irked fans enough to voice their discontent through the power of YouTube's dislike button.
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