The Pokemon Company has announced that it will release a Pokemon Trading card game themed around Pokemon Go. The announcement caught everyone by surprise when it was made official the Japanese Twitter account, accompanied by a brief teaser video released. This set in particular will be named “Pokemon Go” and to feature card art taken from Pokemon Go. The set appears to be a mini expansion, as booster packs released in Japan will only contain 6 cards, and will feature Mewtwo as one of the set’s mascots. Nothing else was announced about the set, such as if it will include any mechanics inspired by Pokemon Go.
The special set release date is June 17th 2022. As of right now, there is no plans on an international date at this current time. The cards will likely either be integrated into a full US set or released through a series of special box products, its important to note that retailer listings has confirmed that the US/International audience would their special set in June, which has not been announced yet. So there’s a possibility that they could have a simultaneous release for both US and Internationally.
For those unaware; Pokemon Go is an 2016 augmented reality (AR) game developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company for iOS and Android devices. A part of the Pokemon franchise, the game is the result of a collaboration between Niantic, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. It uses mobile devices with GPS to locate, capture, train, and battle virtual creatures, called Pokemon, which appear as if they are in the player’s real-world location. The game is free-to-play, with options to purchase certain items at certain times in the game.
The new card set continues a collaboration between Pokemon Go and the Pokemon Trading Card Game which started last year with release of Professor Willow themed card, during that time, Niantic has stated that further collaborations were possible, so it does look like we’re seeing it come into fruition now.
The Pokemon Trading card game is set to release its first English set sometime this month. The new expansion will add a new “VSTAR” mechanic to the game, which gives players the chance to use a VSTAR power once per game. The mechanic acts as a combination of sorts for the Pokemon VMAX mechanic currently used in the game, as well as the GX mechanic used in the previous “Sun and Moon” period. The next set for release is will feature Pokemon from Pokemon Legends; Arceus,a new Pokemon mechanic labelled as “Sparkling Pokemon” is also set to be introduced in the game at some point.
