The Pokémon Company announces Pokémon Co-Master for Japanese smartphones

By Mike Epstein Published March 11, 2016

The Pokémon Company will publish Pokémon Co-Master, a figurine-powered board game for smartphones in Japan this Spring, the company announced Thursday.

Made in collaboration with Japanese AI-maker Heroz, which specializes in digital versions of board games such as Shoji and Go, C0-Master will be a free-to-play online board game where players use Pokémon-themed tokens: According to Kotaku, the game will feature some form of Pokémon’s core RPG elements, including training and battling. The name, “Co-Master,” refers to the fact that both players will receive strategic aid from the game’s AI, though it isn’t exactly clear how they will work together.

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The game will not be published by Nintendo directly — The Pokémon Company is a co-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures — and will not be a part of the company’s slate of smartphone games. Nintendo announced in 2015 that it planned to release five smartphone apps by April 1, 2017. The first of them, the Miiverse-style chat app Miitomo is on track to launch in Japan March 17. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima told investors its second smartphone app will “not be a communications device” and would feature an IP “very well known to everyone” during an earnings report in February, 2016.

Pokémon Co-Master is the latest in a seemingly ever-growing list of games set to come out during the Pokémon series’ 20th anniversary year. Last month, Nintendo re-released Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS eShop in North America, and announced a pair of fully fledged sequels, Pokémon Sun and Moon, will hit stores worldwide this holiday season. Nintendo and Tekken publisher Namco Bandai will also release their Pokémon-centric fighting game, Pokkén Tournament, March 18.

Pokémon Co-Master will come to iOS and Android in Japan in Spring, 2016. There are currently no announced plans for an international release.

Former Associate Editor, Gaming

Michael is a New York-based tech and culture reporter, and a graduate of Northwestwern University’s Medill School of…

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