Pokémon Unite Ending Service In Select European Markets Next Year

"We have made the difficult decision"

by · Nintendo Life
Image: The Pokémon Company

The free-to-play MOBA Pokémon Unite has established a significant fanbase since its arrival on the Switch and mobile in 2021, but it will now be exiting select markets.

In an official announcement, The Pokémon Company has revealed Unite will end its service in Belgium and the Netherlands as of 30th November 2025. Downloads of the title won't be available beyond this date and in-game items (including subscriptions and Aeos Gems) won't be available to purchase from 31st October 2024. Here's the message in full:

Thank you to everyone for your continued support of Pokémon UNITE.

Unfortunately, we have made the difficult decision to end service for Pokémon UNITE in Belgium and the Netherlands from November 30, 2025.

As of November 30, 2025, service for Pokémon UNITE will end in Belgium and the Netherlands. The app will no longer be available to download on mobile devices or Nintendo Switch beyond that date. In-game items, including Aeos Gems and Subscriptions, will no longer be available for purchase from October 31, 2024. Please ensure to use all in-game items before November 30, 2025.

Players may reach out to Support for any issues before November 30, 2025.

We’d like to thank our players in Belgium and Netherlands for their support, and we apologise for any inconvenience.

No official reason has been provided, but as highlighted by Pokémon GO Hub, it's "widely speculated that the move comes courtesy of the stringent rules and regulations regarding loot boxes and gacha mechanics" in select markets.

When Pokémon Unite launched on Switch, we thought the gameplay was engaging but couldn't help but feel the game was geared toward grabbing people's purses to win games rather than providing an even playing field for everyone.

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If we hear any significant developments or updates, we'll let you know.

[source unite.pokemon.com, via x.com, pokemongohub.net]

Related Games
   •  Pokémon Unite (Switch eShop)
See Also
   •  Pokémon Unite Review
   •  Guide: Pokémon GO Eevee Evolutions Ranked - How To Get Sylveon, Leafeon, Glaceon, Umbreon, Espeon, Vaporeon, Jolteon And Flareon
   •  Guide: Pokémon GO Mega Evolutions List - How Get Mega Energy
   •  Guide: Pokémon GO Special Evolutions – How To Get Pangoro, Sylveon, Glaceon, Aromatisse, Slurpuff, Sirfetch’d, Galarian Cofagrigus And More
   •  Guide: Pokémon Sword And Shield: Pokédex Galar Region
   •  Guide: Pokémon GO – The Rarest Pokémon Including Wild, Shiny, Mythical And Regional Catches

About Liam Doolan

Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. He's also got a soft spot for Sonic the Hedgehog.

Comments 43

Pokemon un-united...🤦

I guess Belgium and the Netherlands weren't buying enough $40 Skins to justify it. How tragic, said no one.

I cannot believe that The Pokémon Company declared war on Belgium and the Netherlands.

precisely why I hate live-service games.

F*CK YOU POIROT

@HotGoomba They've known peace for far too long.

Never thought I'd see Pokedexit in my lifetime.

Not sure about the Netherlands. But for Belgium, I believe they are cracking down on Gacha games or something? They banned Lootboxes, and that is pretty much on what I know.

So with that in mind, it's probably not profitable in Belgium.

I'm amazed Nintendo is open to bad rep as their mobile games continue to have gacha mechanics, Pokemon unite is a good game but it along with Mario kart tour and others needs changing

@shoeses Pokemon Company has been weaponizing their Picakchu's. Training them to be the ultimate super soliders. Belgium stands no chance.

There is no such thing in the Netherlands. I can download and play Nikke, Cat Fantasy, ect right now.

Granted, these games have pity systems so that means you can just buy the character should you have a string of bad luck, and it's better to get into the "buying with fail points" mentality when playing these games.

@IceEarthGuard doesn't mean they should kick the players or prevent them from playing. Being a Dutch player is sometimes miserable since we get lumped into Belgium when our country doesn't have anything against gacha games

@Samalik I agree, they should still be able to play the game.

Is it ever a ‘difficult’ decision? These businesses always begin like they are referring to precious life instead of products, it’s so weird.

@NinChocolate They are cutting off a potential revenue stream.

@anoyonmus Same. Just.. same. I can replay Pokémon Colosseum on my Cube or Pokémon Ultra Moon on my 3DS anytime I want - with Live Service crap like the mobile games... yeah, not so much. Hate 'em and I can't believe some people actually defend that type of ''game''

So rather than updating the game to make it less gambling adjacent, they are just going to stop making the game available. Gacha/loot box mentality needs to die in general. It's a terrible system that preys on compulsive people.

@Samalik In this case regulators have decided that for them

This is stupid! As a Dutchman myself, I think this is stupid. Before you know it, there'll be no more Nintendo games in the Netherlands and Belgium! Now that's a future that I (and I think a lot of people would agree with me) don't want!

@Maubari what's wrong with having a game that keeps getting bigger and better?

@TanukiTrooper or ya know, you could learn to preserve your resources until you can hit pity. Gacha games aren't really built the same as they were 5-7 years ago. Knowing how to save rather than endlessly spend is what a lot of popular gacha games encourage these days.

Thanks to our government a lot of "free to play" games skip our country. For example the new Pokémon Trading Card game is not releasing here.

It should be mandatory for live service games to release an offline version to play with bots after a game shuts down, they can charge for it and let you keep all the items you spent money on. Why not preserving these games.

Ah too bad, I have played this game weekly since launch. Guess I'm the only Dutchie who does or I should've bought more skins. Sad to see it go, but it was inevitable.

@HugoGED #stopkillinggames

@Asterixfan Live service games? Sure. But I really don't see Nintendo pulling out of the Netherlands and/or Belgium fully - at all.

The Pokémon company is clearly dancing around why specifically they are pulling the game out in Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium is one of the first countries to call lootboxes exactly what they are: gambling with real money. This doesn't mean the games featuring them are illegal, but they will be labeled 18+. For that reason a lot of developers of kid's games decide to pull out of Belgium (and NL, since the Dutch speaking part of Belgium and NL are usually lumped together). And I understand that that's frustrating since they are the exception right now. But I also know almost every gamers complains about the lootbox freemium model. So think of it this way: These companies are trying to squeeze money out off kids by getting them into gambling, and Belgium is at least protecting it's citizens. If more countries follow and this becomes the norm, games will have to adapt to not be cashgrabs instead of just opting out of these few countries.
It has nothing to do with NL/BE not buying enough skins, it's just the Pokémon company not wanting to admit to the government that they are trying to make money out of getting children to gamble.

@Samalik It's dependence on internet, and the gacha system. Simple as that; a game needs to be full when it's released, not updated all the time to make it a fully complete game over time.

See, Fantasy Life 2 for exemple - they delayed the game by half a year.. but by the time it actually gets here, it will be 100% complete. I have no doubt the game will have zero DLC and will most likely just be finished from the get go. Most games nowadays could learn a thing or two

@Maubari The problem with that is that it assumes that these games don't already launch "complete", because the ones that launch underbaked usually EoS fast.

They are games that are constantly growing, some having plans that take 10-15 years to reach their development conclusion (Imagine having to develop an unreleased game for that long with all of the complaints about big budgets and long dev years....) and they have to have a satisfying amount of content to keep you playing. And by that point, these games are humongous when core development stops.

Live Service games are more like TV shows while conventional retail releases are more like movies. I think both should have their strengths noticed instead of dismissed.

@626b "But I also know almost every gamer complains about the lootbox freemium model."

Ok, that's a lie. Because anybody who plays these kinds of games, which is a millions of players mind you, knows the complaints are case-by-case, not universal. Even the gambling accusation is case-by-case when it comes to these kinds of games, because not all games manage their gacha systems the same way when it comes time to get new characters, items, ect.

That said, it seems the game does have the worse implementation of gacha, as there's no spark/pity system that lets you get into the mentality of buying the item. I'm trying to check for myself within the game but the UI is horrendous.

Oh well such is life. It's a good game but honestly based on my own personal experience it's just a rage quit Simulator and the Community leaves a lot to be desired. If it shut down here in Ireland I couldn't care less at all.

The headline had me thinking this game was on the way out which seemed kinda shocking, but it being these particular countries makes sense I guess.

Yeah, as soon as I saw Belgium is involved I knew that it's most likely at least in that country's case because of the regulations regarding loot boxes and gacha mechanics even before reading the rest of the article as that's the reason why Nintendo's mobile games are unavailable there.
As much as I'm not the biggest fan of those mechanics I'm all for people being more responsible (especially parents who should absolutely not let their kids have access to their credit cards) instead of laws preventing access to games including them - if they really wanted to make something mandatory by law then I'd rather it be companies releasing offline versions of such games instead of shutting them down completely as already mentioned by @HugoGED!

@Asterixfan I don't think that's going to happen at all. - Fellow Dutch person

@Samalik Well good for you. I, for one, will never accept live service games. If Nintendo decides to start making them, I will pretty much ignore them all. Either give me a game I can play anywhere or offline - or just don't bother at all.

The fact that millions of ''gamers'' are fine with this kind of business model/games is honestly extremely worrisome to me. They can play what they want of course... but they shouldn't throw a temper tantrum when their beloved game is taken offline - forever. Meanwhile, i'll still happily be playing Mario Odyssey and Zelda Echoes of Wisdom 10-15 years from now.

If the issue is the gatcha/loot boxes, then I don't think Pokémon Unite will be the only ones that will be doing this, there are a lot of other big names with this mechanic which means they may be leaving from those countries soon too.
Overwatch, Valorant, Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Fortnite, Party Animals, My Hero Ultra Rumble, Zenless Zone Zero, and that is just to name a few.
Is possible Nintendo may also end services for their other mobile games too in those countries, like Mario Kart Tour, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, and Fire Emblem Heroes. Even SEGA mobile Sonic games could go away too. This whole cracking down on gatcha and loot boxes will have a ripple effect.

@Maubari You're talking about a different issue altogether now. That's why #stopkillinggames is a thing. Yes, gamers should get on these companies cases for taking away something they spent money on.

As for games like these, you can already tether your switch to a mobile hotspot and play your games anywhere as is. I already did this with YuGiOh Master Duel, which might not be as data intensive as this game, but it's still something you can do.

Also stop using "gamers" in air quotes. Just because you don't approve of how they play their games doesn't make them any less of a gamer. For all you know, they may just prefer multiplayer games....

@Samalik Fair enough, that was probably uncalled for. Either way, I really don't want a future where all games are like this. I'm relatively fine with live service existing next to regular games - just not that they'll overtake them and every game out there becomes like that. It's a lazy business model, one I cannot and will not agree with

@Maubari That's the thing, there's not gonna be a future where all games are like this. That's borderline impossible and very hyperbole/fear-mongered to think it would (assuming you're not from a poor country of course where you take what you can get) due to everyone wanting to make a different kind of game, and I'm not talking indies.

I'm not gonna agree either that it's a lazy business model either. If anything, it probably takes more attention to keep servers online at all times and keep them updated in the long term. That's the development downside of Live service games devs have to take with the medium when they set their sights on making one, hopefully of their own volition. Even a game I'm playing, Blue Archive, is releasing new pair of characters with their own stories and unique events every month while making sure they interact well with the 100 other characters, since it's an team building RTS. That's far from what I would call lazy, and kind of pushes me back to the TV show analogy...

@Chibi_Manny What are you even talking about? Neither Overwatch 2 nor Fortnite have any sort of loot boxes.

I loved this game at first but it has a few issues that kinda of burned me on the experience e.g how you can't just win and you have to wait for the time to run out. I wish you could just destroy the final base. Also 10mins is to quick for a moba. (For my taste anyway)

As a Belgian myself, one that wrote a paper on video games so I had to look into our laws on this stuff, it sure feels like all it ends up doing is getting the games to leave our country because we are the exception. The law itself would be good in my eyes, it doesn't ban games outright at all, just more strict rules on games like this, if it didn't just kind of come down to 'only the big companies pull out', the smaller games with less attention get overlooked. So worse gacha systems than pokemon unite might be roaming free, while nintendo plays it safe and just pulls out altogether (though they probably could have just altered the game to fit the regulations, pffft. None of this 'this was a hard decision' BS.)

I don't personally care for the game and the other nintendo mobile games that have been unavailable here but it really just comes down to punishing players at this point who can play these sorts of games safely, for a law that's too inconsistent in its appliance to have my support. If other countries followed suit nintendo would find it worth putting in effort to change the game around maybe, but sadly Belgium is a small country, so maybe they just decided it was too much effort.

Wait does this game have gacha/gambling mechanics? I've steered clear of it like a bad smell but I thought it was just overpriced skins and grindy unlocks to make you spend real money.

If there is a random chance element that is even worse.

@Druidsbrook see that's the weird thing. I recently got back into it for about 2 weeks where I played a lot and I didn't see any gacha at all. Just "buy paid currency to get Pokemon or skins, or grind coins to do so for free." The only thing remotely like gambling was a thing where you collect random emblems to change your stats, but this felt more like a fun sidemode and was something you could do for free after every match.

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