Just over five years after its launch, The Pokemon Company and Tencent are shutting down Pokemon Unite. The bombshell announcement came on Tuesday, confirming the game will close its doors on March 23, 2027, and as the post-mortem on the game continues while it’s still alive, its players are starting to think Tencent is the driving force behind Unite’s imminent closure.

Speculation that Tencent is the studio responsible for Unite shutting down, not The Pokemon Company, stems from a post where a fan is stating it as fact. That’s not true, and neither side has confirmed who is to blame. They likely never will. That hasn’t stopped fans from speculating, and it really does seem like Tencent wants out of the Unite game, and there’s not much The Pokemon Company can do about it.

Unite is developed by TiMi, a Tencent-owned studio. It’s believed that the Unite contract between Pokemon and Tencent is up for renewal, and that Tencent has simply opted not to enter into a new deal, potentially because it isn’t making enough money from the game. It’s possible, even likely, that Tencent owns the assets and rights to the game, which would explain why Pokemon can’t simply take it back and let Unite live on under a new studio.

Pokemon’s Unite plans outside of the game itself lean into the theory that it doesn’t want the game to die. On February 27, 2027, less than a month before the game is shut down forever, a dubbed version of the anime focused on a Unite crossover that was created to promote the game will air on Netflix.

Source link