It’s a good day to be a Pokémon fan in Canada as residents of that country have been chosen as the only beta testers for an upcoming new Pokémon game called Live.
The full name of the game is Pokémon Trading Card Game Live, which is a replacement for the outgoing Pokémon Trading Card Game Online (PTCGO). Both clients allow users to collect and play cards – based on the real TCG – but Live is much newer and will retire PTCGO which has been around since 2012 and was originally a Flash game.
We discussed some of the many problems with PTCGO back in 2018 and why new software was sorely needed.
Live was announced back in September 2021 and was originally planned for release before the end of last year. A delay pushed it back indefinitely and this news of a beta in Canada is the latest we’ve heard of it.
“A new way to play the Pokémon TCG is on the way! Pokémon TCG Live will be available in Canada in a limited beta starting February 22, 2022, at noon PST. This new digital version of the game lets fans compile an extensive card collection, build powerful decks, battle friends, and more,” the announcement reads.
“Players can add cards to their collection in numerous ways including scanning code cards, exchanging currency earned in-game for booster packs, and participating in daily quests. Pokémon TCG Live is free to play and will be available to Canadian players via mobile devices, PC, and Mac.”
Canadians thinking about giving the game a try should read over the fine details here as migrating accounts from PTCGO to Live has a lot of caveats.
Non-Canadians thinking about firing up a VPN should probably not use their old accounts in case they get banned for spoofing their location. We’re not saying that those interested should make new accounts and use a VPN just to check things out… but that is something someone could possibly do.
An updated trailer for Live has been released and you can watch the embed below. Interestingly this is an unlisted video which was released on 12th February, so the limited Canada release has been in the works at least for the few days.
The trailer shows much of the same gameplay and UI we saw last year but there’s also some inserts for the latest TCG expansion Brilliant Stars which is releasing in physical form on 25th February.
