Pokémon Unite finally addresses World Championships device blunder

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.”

Pokémon Unite caster and content creator spragels made a detailed video covering the incident from his perspective at the event, saying that the wide variety of specifically Android phones used at events often have trouble connecting to the venue’s LAN system, leading to delays in the livestream coverage and overall competition. Regardless, most agree that making the change on the day of Unite’s largest competition of the year probably wasn’t the best move, but standardizing competitive devices could have some benefits going forward.

Thanks to the handheld console‘s beefed-up hardware, the Nintendo Switch 2 is a great way to play Pokémon Unite with stable frame rates, and those competitors who play on the Switch got to use the new console for the first time at Worlds this year. The hype from the crowd on Championship Sunday definitely got me thinking about picking up the free Pokémon game again, but don’t expect to see me competing any time soon.