Earlier this month, Pokemon Masters received a new trailer introducing a co-op mode for the game where players work together against AI opponents.

Given this inter-connectivity some fans may be wondering whether a PVP (Player VS Player) mode would be introduced somewhere down the line, as is a staple of the Pokemon franchise.

However, speaking to USGamer, Pokemon Masters producer Yuu Sasaki confirmed that there were no plans to include PVP into the game. According to Sasaki, this is because Pokemon Masters was specifically designed with cooperation between players in mind.

“The core premise for this game Pokemon Masters is that we want people to be working together, to be making friends, to be working with their companions and sort of meeting all these different sync pairs,and we want people to enjoy that side of the game.

So since that was the founding principle for this, we decided that we weren’t going to include something where you’re trying to have players pitted against other players, because that just wouldn’t be compatible with the original concept.”

In fact, this emphasis on co-op is one of the key reasons Pokemon Masters features real-time-battles as opposed to the series’ traditional turn-based format.

“The reason for [a real-time combat system] is that we do have a mode in the game where three people will be able to play in co-op,”

“And so if you have a turn-based setup for that, there’s always going to be that time where maybe one of those people is thinking about what they want to do while everyone else is waiting, and that experience isn’t a good match for something like that turn-based experience. So we, because we had co-op in mind, decided to do real-time play because that was a better fit.”

Pokemon Masters is scheduled to launch sometime in Summer 2019 for Android and iOS devices. However, a special preview version of the game will be launching later this week for Android in Singapore.