Pokkén Tournament

Pokémon fighting game announced: Pokkén Tournament heading to Japanese arcades

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The Pokémon Company is making a 3D fighting game for arcades that casts players as the famous Pocket Monsters.

In a livestream today, The Pokémon Company revealed footage from Pokkén Tournament in public for the first time. Details are sparse at the moment, but it seems the Bandai Namco team behind the fighting series Tekken is developing it.

According to Kotaku, the head of the Tekken team, Katsuhiro Harada, said, “If you like Pokémon, anyone can enjoy this game.” He added that it is actually “closer to an action game.”

We have no word of a console release for Pokkén Tournament yet, with the game initially heading to arcades in Japan in 2015. Plenty of fighting games have started out in the arcade before heading to home consoles, though, so don’t rule out a release for Nintendo’s Wii U yet.

Siliconera first spotted a trademark for the title Pokkén Tournament back in August last year, but no further details were known until today.

Pokkén Tournament
Machamp takes a swing at Lucario.
Pokkén Tournament title
The Pokkén Tournament title screen looks very much like Tekken.