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Pokémon Unite to shut down on 23 March 2027; gem sales stop, final event from 12 November, library added
The Pokémon Company and TiMi Studio Group will end service for the free-to-play game Pokémon Unite on 23 March 2027, announced on 27 October. Aeos gem sales have stopped, new Unite Club memberships are suspended, a final event starts on 12 November and a library feature will keep records.
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The Pokémon Company and TiMi Studio Group have announced that Pokémon Unite will end service on 23 March 2027, bringing to a close a free-to-play team battle game that launched in 2021 on the Nintendo Switch and on mobile phones. The announcement was made on 27 October 2026. Service will end at 00:00 UTC on 23 March, which is 9:00 in the morning in Japan and 5:30 in the morning in India.
The key dates
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 27 October 2026 | Sales of Aeos gems end; new Unite Club purchases and auto-renewals are suspended |
| 12 November 2026 | A special event begins and the library feature is added |
| 28 January 2027 | Service ends for the separate client in mainland China |
| 23 March 2027 | Service ends on Switch and mobile worldwide |
The game is a team-based online battle game of the kind known as a multiplayer online battle arena. Players form teams of five and fight to score points, with Pokémon as their fighters.
Aeos gems are the game's premium currency. Sales ended on 27 October, but gems that players already own can be spent until the shutdown. The Unite Club subscription cannot be bought or renewed automatically any more, and current memberships keep their benefits until the end of the billing period. A report notes that it is not clear whether annual members will receive refunds, and Japanese coverage says that details on special events and refunds have been announced by the company, so players should read the notices in the game.
The final event
A special event starting on 12 November will run for about five months, and players can collect Unite Coins that can be exchanged for in-game items and cosmetics, including licences and Holowear that have appeared in the game before. Details of the event are limited so far.
From 12 November the game will add a library feature, which lets players view certain records and in-game content after the service ends. It has to be set up before 23 March, and it works only on the device where it is set up. The developers are also said to be looking at further ways for players to interact with their Pokémon and unlocked items after the shutdown. Once the service ends, online matches stop, and the guidelines for the use of videos and images of the game will no longer be maintained.
The company announced in the summer of 2026 that the game would be dropped from the 2027 Pokémon World Championships events. The Aeos Crown 2027 Tokyo tournament, which is only for Pokémon Unite, will still be held as it was announced earlier. The company has not given a reason for the shutdown, and the reports mention no figures for the number of players.
This is not the first time the game has been withdrawn in a region. In 2024, the company announced that the game would end service in Belgium and the Netherlands on 30 November 2025, after it stopped in-app purchases in those countries, and it was speculated that rules on loot boxes there were the reason, though none was given at the time.
The game was developed by TiMi Studio Group and is published by The Pokémon Company, and it will have run for about five and two-thirds years by the time the servers close. It was released on the Nintendo Switch and later on mobile phones, and it is an online game, so when the servers close it can no longer be played, and a copy kept on a device will not help.
The official post opens with the words thank you for playing Pokémon Unite and says that the company regrets having to give the news. A writer at one gaming site called it another example of the transient nature of modern games, which can be made unplayable by their publishers, and said that this deeply sucks. For players who have spent money on gems and cosmetics, the lesson is that items in an online-only game last only as long as the service, so those who plan to buy should keep that in mind.
Fans who want to keep a record of their progress should set up the library after it appears on 12 November, and should do so on the device they play on, well before the end date.
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