Monster Taming Direct 2023, the latest annual showcase event from popular YouTuber Gym Leader Ed, has been announced to premiere on their channel on September 4th, 2023, at 4 PM eastern time.

Like last year’s event, it will feature a variety of titles and developers in the Monster Taming sub-genre. It’s a niche area close to my heart, which includes major successes like Cassette Beasts, Temtem, and upcoming titles like Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers. These games are proudly influenced by classic IP like Pokémon and Digimon.

According to today’s video announcement, this year’s Monster Taming Direct boasts 34 submissions, and is expected to last about an hour.

You can watch today’s release date trailer for the new event, which features a full breakdown of the content viewers can look forward to, on Gym Leader Ed’s YouTube channel:

Monster Taming Direct 2023 also aims to concentrate on titles that “deserve way more attention” for this year’s theme. Naturally, this goal caught my eye, since that spirit of support is the primary mission of LBR.

I hope to see compelling, exclusive teasers for overlooked gems. New games in the Monster Taming genre are often born in order to establish some clever new twist. They have the potential to add content and fresh mechanics that fans might feel was missing.

Or perhaps they have a gorgeous, thriving world of lore and creatures with enough breadth and novelty to justify exploring the genre. With over two dozen submissions and an exciting theme, I’m really on the lookout for anything especially weird.

The event arrives just a couple of weeks before Pokémon Scarlet and Violet release their brand-new DLC The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. Fans will definitely have the genre on their mind. It’ll be a personal delight to discover how new dev teams will evolve the genre.

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