Pokemon Masters Overrun by Villains for April Fools Day

DeNA's mobile game Pokemon Masters EX has thrived among its fans largely because of the way it incorporates characters from all across the popular series. This includes protagonists, figures like Gym Leaders, and villains - recently including Lysandre and Yveltal from Pokemon X and Y. However, the game has its own original cast of characters, including a villainous team which has taken over for April Fools' Day 2021.

The underlying narrative in Pokemon Masters' story revolves around Team Break attempting to stop the Pokemon Masters League hosted by Prince Lear - who created the artificial island of Pasio where the game takes place. Players who logged into the game today discovered the Pokemon Center acting as a hub area was taken over by Team Break, with members replacing trainers usually found around the area as part of the "Team Break Day" special event.

These villainous characters don't do much in the Pokemon Center hub beyond making its hosts Trista, Trinnia, and Tricia uncomfortable. However, there is also a set of battles players can take on for "Team Break Day" that reward some gems, and according to another in-game notification this may help lead into a new Main Story chapter being added on April 7.

Once the "Team Break Day" festivities end, Pokemon Masters will host an Easter-themed event called "Pasio Eggsplorers," which will feature costumed variants of Hoenn protagonist May and Unova Gym Leader Burgh paired with Lopunny and Togepi, respectively. Though this April Fools' Day event is smaller than Pokemon Sword and Shield adding special Magikarp raids and the series' Twitter account becoming Bidoof-themed, at least it offers players extra gems following the back-to-back release of Champions Iris and Diantha in the game's gacha Sync Pair Scout.

April 1 brings a host of gags and fake announcements every year as companies and individuals alike celebrate April Fools' Day. Sometimes these are just ideas put out into the world with no tangible component, but other times games do change to fit the event. For example, Epic Games added the 'Stonks' meme as a Fortnite skin this year, and Blizzard brought googly-eyed characters back to Overwatch.

The team-based hero shooter has been an eccentric title since it released in 2016, adding characters ranging from a centaur mech to a literal hamster driving a robot that turns into a wrecking ball. It also has skins for its characters based on different holidays, as well as more out-there choices like cosmetics based on Overwatch's Pachimari mascot. When coming up with something to work as an April Fools' Day gag, Blizzard apparently decided to keep things simple with a returning idea.

Every character in Overwatch received googly eyes for April Fools' Day 2020, with pupils that would jostle around as players ran across different maps trying to win firefights and clear objectives. Those eyes have returned this year, and fans all over social media sites like Reddit appear happy to see them again.

The official Overwatch Twitter account teased the impending return of this April Fools' Day joke yesterday, with the post a googly eye-esque emoji receiving nearly 1,000 comments and 500 quote retweets as of this writing. Among the responses, many of which are players sharing pictures of their Overwatch characters with the additional pairs of eyes, are comments from Overwatch League teams like Seoul Dynasty, Shanghai Dragons, and Hangzhou Spark posting the same emoji.