Pokémon Unite Is Shutting Down in March 2027. Here’s What to Do With Your Aeos Gems

Pokémon Unite has a little under five months left. The Pokémon Company and developer TiMi Studio Group announced on October 27 that the free-to-play MOBA will end service on March 23, 2027, at 00:00 UTC, on both mobile and Nintendo Switch. After that, nobody can log in or play a match.

If you have the game on your Android phone, some of this already affects you. Aeos gem sales stopped the same day the shutdown was announced. So did new Unite Club memberships and automatic renewals. The store is closed. The servers are still on.

What changed on October 27

According to the official end-of-service notice, three things switched off at 05:00 UTC on Tuesday, October 27, 2026:

• Aeos gem purchases. You can’t buy any more of the game’s premium currency.
• New Unite Club memberships. The subscription is closed to new sign-ups.
• Automatic renewals. Existing Unite Club members keep their perks until their current period runs out, then it simply ends.

Gems you already own still work. You can spend them right up until the servers go dark in March. The announcement says nothing about refunds for unspent gems, so don’t count on getting money back for a balance you never use. If you’re sitting on a stash, spend it on something you’ll enjoy over the next few months.

The road to March 23: key dates

The Pokémon Company isn’t just pulling the plug. There’s a farewell event, one last tournament, and a way to keep a record of your time in the game.

The November 12 update is the one to circle. Game Informer reports that the final event will let players obtain all the Unite licenses and Holowear released up to that point. In other words, every Pokémon and every outfit, for everyone, for the last few months of the game. It’s a generous send-off, and probably the most fun Unite will have been in a while.

Don’t skip the library download

The same update adds a library feature for viewing certain records and in-game content after the shutdown. There’s a catch, and it’s an easy one to miss. You have to finish downloading the library data before March 23, 2027, at 00:00 UTC, or you won’t be able to access it afterward. The official notice also warns that library data generally can’t be moved between devices.

That last point matters for Android users. If you plan to upgrade your phone this winter, maybe to a Galaxy S27 or whatever lands under the tree, think about which device you want your Unite memories on. Download the library there.

How Unite got here

It wasn’t always heading this way. Unite launched on Switch on July 21, 2021, and arrived on Android and iOS on September 22 that year. The pitch was simple: a MOBA for people who find League of Legends and Dota 2 exhausting, with 10-minute matches and friendlier mechanics. Game Informer’s launch review gave it an 8/10, with the reviewer admitting, “The game eats away the hours of my day as I reassuringly say to myself, ‘Just one more match.'”

The numbers backed that up early on. Unite passed 50 million downloads within about four months, and in December 2022 the game handed out a gift code to celebrate 100 million downloads, as Nintendo Life reported at the time.

The decline has been visible for a while if you knew where to look. Unite stopped handing out Aeos coins in December 2025, replacing them with License Journeys. In July, Pokémon confirmed the game wouldn’t be part of the 2027 Championship Series or World Championships, which made August’s Worlds in San Francisco its last appearance on that stage. Pocket Gamer’s read is that the game had been losing momentum for about a year, and that the Pokémon name alone couldn’t save it.

Neither company has given an official reason. The farewell notice sticks to gratitude: “We offer our sincerest gratitude to the many Trainers who have played since service started.”

What Unite players should do now

1. Stop thinking about buying anything. You can’t anyway, and any Unite Club perks will lapse at the end of your current period.
2. Spend your Aeos gems. They’re worthless after March 23, and refunds aren’t part of the announcement.
3. Log in after November 12. Grab the licenses and Holowear from the final event while matchmaking is still busy.
4. Download the library early. Do it on the phone you plan to keep, well before the March deadline.
5. Competitive players: watch December 5. Aeos Crown 2027 qualifiers start then, and the Tokyo winner, as Pocket Gamer put it, “gets to keep the title for good.”

It’s a sad end for a game that made a hardcore genre feel welcoming on a phone. But as shutdowns go, this one is handled better than most: months of notice, everything unlocked for the finale, and a way to keep your history. Play it while it’s here.

Sources: The Pokémon Company, Game Informer, Pocket Gamer, Nintendo Life. Photo by Pandhuya Niking on Unsplash.