Now that the Pokémon World Championships have concluded for the 2025 season, Pokémon Unite’s eSports team has finally addressed a huge shake-up that occurred during the tournament. On the second day of competition, all Unite players had to switch from their own devices to tournament-provided hardware, causing all sorts of issues in the process.
Pokémon Unite’s Worlds competitors were not happy about the way the tournament organizers implemented this change. Not only did it mean these players needed to get used to a new device on the fly, but some of the hardware provided was nowhere near as powerful as the gaming phones they were used to, resulting in frame drops during a typically very graphically hectic game.
Yesterday, the official Pokémon Unite eSports account posted a statement to “sincerely acknowledge” the concerns raised and communicate how these changes will affect the mobile MOBA’s competitive scene going forward. Despite the pushback, The Pokémon Group is going ahead with using event-provided devices for Worlds 2026, rather than letting competitors use their own phones. It will confirm the exact devices “at least 75 days” before worlds, and the mobile devices are guaranteed to have “sufficient hardware specifications to support optimal gameplay.”
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