Whereas Sport Freak little question has its fingers full engaged on Pokémon Legends ZA, it’s had the time to work on one other challenge impartial of its iconic monster-catching franchise. Though this one is distinctly smaller-scale, being a free-to-play cellular sport titled Pand Land.

Sport Freak will not be the only developer on this title, having partnered with one other Japanese studio known as WonderPlanet, which has primarily labored on different free-to-play cellular video games. In a press launch shared earlier immediately (translated by Gematsu), the 2 studios describe Pand Land as a “informal crusing journey RPG… the place you turn out to be the captain of an expedition group and set out on a journey in the hunt for legendary treasure.”

At first, it sounded to me like an try at aping Uncommon’s hit live-service Sea of Thieves, albeit with a blocky artwork type harking back to Pokémon Quest (what number of of you even keep in mind Pokémon Quest?). Upon watching the trailer, although, it’s extra of a dungeon crawler, with you crusing to and exploring numerous islands with a top-down perspective. That mentioned, there’s a multiplayer part like Sea of Thieves, the place you’ll be able to group up with different gamers and journey collectively.

The sport guarantees over 400 get together members you’ll be able to recruit, a few of which seem like blocky, vibrant animals, whereas others are human crew members. The trailer additionally boasts some good character artwork you can simply mistake for being from a Pokémon sport since they’re clearly performed by the identical artists for that sequence.

Pand Land looks as if a cute and innocent sufficient time, although it’s unclear how its monetisation will work, and the way a lot of a grind it may be for those who don’t need to fork over actual cash for its microtransactions. I might say you don’t have lengthy to attend to attempt it out, because it’s launching on the App Retailer and the Google Play retailer on Monday, June 24, however Pand Land is thus far solely scheduled for a Japanese launch. There’s no point out of it coming to the West, however WonderPlanet has made a few its earlier cellular video games out there worldwide so there’s at all times an opportunity.

That is hardly the primary Sport Freak title to not be associated to Pokémon. Previously, the studio’s put out video games like RPG Little City Hero and the free-to-play Pocket Card Jockey. It’s additionally meant to be teaming up with Personal Division on a brand new action-adventure sport, however contemplating Take-Two is reportedly shutting down Personal Division in its entirety (based on IGN), who is aware of what’s taking place with that challenge.