The Pokémon Company does not want players to lose faith in the game.

I can't tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a Pokémon Unite match, confident in my team's chances of victory, only to have the timer countdown to zero and reveal that we were completely destroyed. That's by design, according to TiMi Studio Group.

In many aspects, Pokémon Unite is similar to other MOBAs, but one feature that stands out is the lack of a scoreboard. Despite the fact that Unite is similar to a sport in which the team with the most points wins, it never counts the points either side has until the match is over. Audio samples in the game give suggestions regarding who's ahead and who's behind, but they're ambiguous. When Zapdos has the ability to turn the entire turn of battle near the end of a match, those swings can be powerful and come in fast succession. So, instead of merely telling gamers how much they're winning or losing, why not tell them exactly how much they're losing?

When questioned why the scoreboard is concealed, Masaaki Hoshino, Pokémon Unite's producer, said in an email, "The battles run 10 minutes and players have the chance of making a comeback, so we wanted them to continue without giving up until the very end." That's absolutely true of the Pokémon mindset, even if it can lead to some misunderstanding on the battlefield about whether it's safe to play defensive or whether teams need to go aggro to save themselves from defeat. The design principle looks to be functioning in either situation. Despite having the option to resign, Pokémon Unite players don't always do so.

While the game is unlikely to have a true scoreboard any time soon, it will continue to evolve in other ways. TiMi released a player survey last month, hinting at the prospect of more modes and perhaps a walkable player lobby in the future, after releasing in July on Switch and going to mobile last month.

One of the most pressing concerns is how the United States' economy will evolve in the future. The game's most important update to date arrived last week in the shape of the Halloween Festival, which included $40 holowear costumes as well as a slew of other free content and gameplay adjustments. Prior to that, the game's pay-to-win features had been all but kneecapped by a major update in September.