Pokémon Unite Shutting Down, But Players Can Still Access It After Closure

That’s it for Pokémon Unite. Tencent’s once-popular MOBA is being switched off in March 2027. The Pokémon Company announced the news today, saying: “We regret to inform you that service for Pokémon Unite will end on Tuesday, March 23, 2027, at 00:00 UTC.”

By way of thanking people for playing, a “special event” runs from now until service-end, which brings a number of additions to the game. Among them is an intriguing Library feature that lets you continue using the game, to a degree, after its end.

The Library allows you to access the Practice Area of Pokémon Unite to view your earned items – Holowear, cosmetics, Pokémon, and achievements – so your efforts in the game won’t entirely disappear. It’ll be available starting 12th November. But note that you’ll need to use the Library before the 23rd March 2007 switch-off date to get the data Library needs to show your achievements, and because that data’s stored locally, you may lose the data if you change device.

“Library data generally cannot be transferred when changing devices,” the Pokémon website said. “If the game or library data is deleted or otherwise lost after service ends, it may not be recoverable. Support for the library feature will not be available after service ends.”

It seems like a thoughtful way to sunset a game, allowing players a record of their progress and some interactivity, instead of yanking everything away entirely.

Pokémon Unite launched in 2021, first on Switch and then on mobile devices. It’s a free-to-play MOBA, essentially, where two teams of five battle it out in an arena with various routes through it and control points to secure and, as Pokémon battle, they earn experience and level up. Pokémon Unite had already been shut down in some European countries because of loot box gambling concerns.

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Austin Wintory has shared twenty minutes of music they pitched to BioWare and EA in hopes of joining the Mass Effect 5 development team, following the tragic closure of BioWare last week.

The composer, known for his work on Journey and Sword of the Sea, uploaded the music to his personal YouTube channel. It was created without knowledge of the narrative direction of the new Mass Effect game, but was presented as a surprise to the companies in 2025 as part of years of conversation. Wintory writes in the video that it was a “direct homage” to Mass Effect 1 composers Jack Wall and Sam Hulick, leaning into analog synths and “a more complex integration of the orchestra”, a hybrid approach Wintory compares to The Matrix movies scores.

This collection of music includes a track called The Legacy of Shepard, which includes “deliberate winks” to the original Mass Effect theme. The second track – Sailing the Relays – features the blend of synth and orchestra mentioned earlier quite heavily. All in all, there are eight tracks included in total, with the eighth being a remix of that first Legacy of Shepard composition.

The video’s description contains a sombre message on BioWare’s closure, as well as gratitude towards the music departments involved in the conversations Wintory took part in: “Receiving the news alongside everyone else that EA had decided to not only cancel the project but shutdown BioWare entirely was a deeply felt loss. It’s been hard to see dear friends lose their jobs, and this beloved franchise seemingly vanish forever.

“Thank you nonetheless to everyone at BioWare and EA’s music department for gifting me the chance to dream in your sandbox. It was a privilege to do even that much.”

Wintory is not alone in their sadness. EA’s closure of BioWare, which included the firing of 50 employees and a further 350 across other EA-owned studios, many across the industry came forward to decry the decision. The decision may even have political ramifications, as one Canadian party leader has expressed a desire to allow BioWare employees to buy back the studio with federal support. This all happened shortly after EA’s $55bn private acquisition from Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Spel Group.

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