Kuju's first-party Nintendo title may be "strategy focused"

Industry sources have suggested that the new Nintendo first-party title from British developer Kuju Entertainment will feature strategy-focused gameplay with some action elements.

The project is described as a strategy game with a 3D terrain engine and a graphical style which one informant compared to SNK's classic Metal Slug games, and it's thought to feature action elements allowing you to get up close to the battles on the ground - which makes us immediately think of Koei's Dynasty Warriors, or perhaps last year's sadly underappreciated Battle Engine Aquila.

As to what the project actually is, whispers running around the industry in the UK this week have focused on the Advance Wars brand - suggesting that Kuju, under the watchful eye of Nintendo, has been handed the task of bringing the hugely popular GBA strategy title to the GameCube.

Both Advance Wars and its sequel, Black Hole Rising, were developed in Japan by Intelligent Systems, however, and we find it hard to believe that Nintendo would move the franchise halfway around the world to Kuju. Stranger things have certainly happened - but not that much stranger.

Our best guess then is that Kuju's title is a new franchise entirely, although we wouldn't rule out the possibility that it may feature some of Nintendo's classic intellectual property in updated form. The promise of "Cube Wars", however, is a sufficiently tantalising prospect that we don't expect that rumour to go away until such time as the company formally unveils the project in the coming months.

Kuju itself has declined absolutely to comment on the nature of the new title, and the London based studio has maintained a stony silence about the matter. We'll just have to wait until Nintendo decides to release more details before anything is confirmed or denied.