Pokemon Masters' latest message to players discusses the Battle Villa, a new Legendary Event and more

Pokemon Masters' latest Message to players from producers Yu Sasaki and Tetsuya Iguchi covered a lot of the upcoming changes that are heading to the game including the much anticipated Battle Villa. They also detailed a few sparse details about a future Legendary event, gameplay changes and a lot more. 

The Battle Villa was the most substantial part of the message, so we'll start there. It's been mentioned several times by the producers as a new singleplayer option and now we have a more clear picture of what form it will take.

The Villa will be a feature that lets you train up to nine Sync Pairs each day. There will be several halls to choose from where you'll see a list of the three weaknesses the Pokemon within them will have. The producers were keen to stress that you'll want to bring a balanced team and not just three-strike pairs, however.

Successfully clearing one of the halls will reward players with items that are Battle Villa exclusives. Using the various rewards you get from the Villa you'll be able to give your Sync Pairs lucky skills. These are new passive abilities that trigger when certain criteria are met, such as the use of a particular move.

The goal of the Battle Villa will be for players to test out how far they can get within a fixed period of time. That means progress will be reset periodically and players will receive a varying number of Gems depending on how far they managed to go.

Beyond that, we also learned that Pryce & Seel will be having their Sync Grid expanded in late January, with four Sync Pairs getting this same treatment per month going forward. Also arriving towards the end of the month will be another Legendary Event that will feature a dragon-type – my money is on Rayquaza but there is a lot of legendary dragon Pokemon it could potentially be. 

In addition to that, there are several smaller updates set to arrive in Pokemon Masters soon. The difficulty of EX Challenges will be adjusted so more players can complete them whilst an opponent's Sync Move will no longer return raised stats back to normal. Furthermore, there will be a method to raise Sync Move levels of Sync Pairs that are only obtainable through the story. This will be achieved through items you can earn from training events.

The last section of the message discussed a few more details about the Six-Month Anniversary Celebration. This will start in February and will see an overhaul to Story Events. They are promising better rewards for taking part in them such as Sync Orbs and Star powerups. The regular story will also grow too with Chapters 22 through 24 being added, bringing new Sync Pairs with them.

There will also be a new Sync Pair arriving that you'll be able to get simply by logging in. They've not revealed who this will be at the moment, only that it will be a surprise. Finally, several Pokemon that can evolve normally but currently can't in Pokemon Masters will have that option unlocked.

Pokemon Masters is available now on the App Store and Google Play. It's a free-to-play game with in-app purchases.