The Pokémon Company and Play! Pokémon is finally pulling the plug on the official competitive scene for Pokkén Tournament DX, announcing that the 2022 Pokkén Tournament Championship Series will be the last one.
This means that while community tournaments for Pokkén could still carry the game forward, TPC is ending its support of the game following the 2022 Pokémon Championship Series, making this year’s world champion for the game the final one.
What this means for Pokkén fans and players is that no official support for the game will be given at any Play Pokémon event moving forward after the 2022 PCS. Only unofficial events will be available, and none of them will be featured on the circuit’s event tracker or other optics.
Pokkén, which was originally released in arcades in July 2015 and on the Wii U in March 2016 before compiling all of that and new content into Pokkén Tournament DX on the Switch in September 2017, became the first Pokémon fighting game and quickly established a small but dedicated following. Since releasing in 2016, Pokkén has been featured as a main game on the PCS circuit and in the Pokémon World Championship series.
But this was a move most fans and players expected since the game’s presence at these Play! Pokémon events dwindled over the years, to the point where only 14 players registered to compete at the recent Europe International Championship. It also doesn’t help that Pokkén is only featured at larger events and not every regional.
With the decline in overall numbers for Pokkén, this discontinuation of competitive support, especially for a game that hasn’t received new content since 2018, isn’t a surprise.
Related: Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada says he wants to make another Pokkén Tournament game
TPC and Play! Pokémon haven’t announced any titles that might take Pokkén’s place in the PCS lineup. But Pokémon Go has an increased presence in the 2022 PCS and the Pokémon UNITE Championship Series launched this year as part of the circuit.
Published: May 26, 2022 03:48 pm