Pokémon Champions launches on Android and iOS today

Pokémon Champions – the free-to-play competitive battling game from The Pokémon Works – launched on Android and iOS today, June 17. The Switch 2 version had already been out since April 8, so today's mobile drop completes the initial platform rollout.

Published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo, Champions strips out the grinding that mainline games demand and lets players jump straight into ranked and unranked single and double battles. Mega evolutions are back as the headline mechanic, shifting the meta away from Scarlet and Violet's terastallization that dominated recent competitions. Pokémon can be imported from Pokémon Home, but the roster is surprisingly thin — only around 190 of the series' 1,000-plus creatures are available. Held items are equally limited, with staples like the choice band, assault vest, and life orb absent entirely.

Game Informer's Switch 2 review praises the core battle system but lands hard on the surrounding features. The in-game currency VP is required not just for cosmetics but also to unlock held items and mega stones — a monetization structure that hits new players hardest. Pokémon collection is free once a day, but keeping them permanently costs VP. The onboarding is also weak: the tutorial covers only the absolute basics, then drops players into a system that's far more complex than it lets on. The reviewer notes that Champions is genuinely exciting for anyone who's wanted to play competitive Pokémon without hundreds of hours of prep, but the restricted roster, missing items, and uneven economy stop it well short of its potential.

Being free-to-play, the mobile launch puts competitive Pokémon in front of a much larger audience than the Switch version alone could reach. Whether Champions holds that audience long-term will depend on how The Pokémon Works addresses its content gaps and monetization in future updates.