Mobile matters at Pokémon Worlds 2024 as Pokémon Go and Unite players get set to clash

• The Pokémon World Championships 2024 start on August 16th in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Pokémon Go and Pokémon Unite will appear alongside main series games and TCG

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The Pokémon World Championships 2024 (Worlds) kick off in Honolulu, Hawaii tomorrow, August 16th, with fans from around the globe set to compete across a range of titles.

This year’s event has a total prize pool of over $2 million, the highest in Pokémon’s Championship series, split across a range of games from Switch titles to trading cards and, yes, even mobile.

The three-day tournament series will include plenty of battles in Niantic’s Pokémon Go and TiMi Studio Group’s Pokémon Unite, with competition winners taking home $20,000 each.

Mobile makes an appearance

2024 marks the third year that Go and Unite will be represented at Worlds, both having been integrated shortly after Unite’s release – during the 2022 event. And being a 5v5 team-based game, this year the winning Unite team is set to win a combined $100,000.

As a multiplatform title, Unite players will compete across iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch. Qualifiers began back in February this year, with MOBA masters all over the world competing for spots at the World Championships.

Earning a Worlds invitation for Pokémon Go, meanwhile, required players to build a powerful tournament-legal team and hit a certain threshold of Championship Points in time – earned through specific events, regional championships, international championships and cups.

While competing at Worlds itself, they must play on a smartphone provided by the organiser.

Facing off in the Great League format, battles are built around optimising Fast Attacks and Charged Attacks, tapping the foe as quickly as possible and completing mini-challenges to knock out opponents.

Players will compete in best-of-three matches through double-elimination brackets. The Winners Finals, Losers Finals, and Grand Finals will be best of five.

Aloha, Worlds

Mobile competitions at Worlds may be a three-year staple now, but the platform’s presence wasn’t always so guaranteed. It took six years for Pokémon Go to be added to the lineup, forcing geolocation gamers for the longest time to watch from the sidelines or pick up a different Pokémon title.

That all changed when Pokémon Unite launched, with its cross-platform nature opening the doors to mobile competitions despite being a much smaller title than its billions-making big brother.

With both titles now firmly integrated, Go will ironically likely outlast main-series Scarlet and Violet’s run at future Worlds, especially with the Nintendo Switch successor slowly but surely on the way.

And to celebrate Go’s appearance at Worlds this year, Niantic plans to distribute Timed Research codes via livestreams during the competition, encouraging even the more lax players to watch. Reward encounters will include plenty of rare Pokémon with a boosted Shiny chance.

Players will even be able to decorate their avatars in Worlds apparel, including a suitably Hawaiian-themed snorkeling Pikachu.