Last August, TPCi filed a trademark for “Pokkén Fighters” and “Pokkén Tournament” while Japan filed one for “Pokken.” This was about the same time the screenshot of Lucario facing off against Blaziken was seen. Now, GoNintendo has discovered that the two trademarks were registered in Europe last week, which means news could be coming soon.

As always, you simply need to examine the marketing machine that is Pokemon to get some clues about what is going on. As our TCG fans know, Japan’s XY3 set is named Rising Fist and features Lucario. What’s different about this set is that it is being released on June 14th rather than the middle of July, which has always been the case for summer TCG sets because they are meant to advertise the latest Pokemon movie (The Cocoon of Destruction and Diancie hits theaters in July, as with every Pokemon movie).

Therefore, the set is obviously not advertising the movie and breaking tradition for a reason, since it would be featuring Diancie over Lucario if this were normal circumstances. Could we be getting the Japanese Rising Fist set in June because it’s meant to advertise a new Pokkén Fighters game? Not to mention the obvious fact that the set is themed after Fighting-type Pokemon and this new game appears to be too (there’s even a Fighting-type TCG symbol in the screenshot). The English version of the set, Furious Fist, comes out on August 12th, so it seems that if there is a new game coming, we’ll be getting it this summer.

The E3 video game convention is next month in Los Angeles. Last year, Pokemon revealed some exclusive XY news at the convention (after I unknowingly spilled it early when I was there, lol). If a new game is coming out, they will probably feature it at the convention again, which may also be why the trademark was just filed in Europe too – they’re getting ready to reveal it and/or it’s coming out soon.