No More Heroes caps off Switch indie showcase
Nintendo lays out upcoming slate of big games from small studios including Super Meat Boy Forever, Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition, Morphies Law, and Shovel Knight: King of Cards
Nintendo is continuing its indie developer push, as the company today released a Nintendo Indies Showcase on YouTube and Twitch highlighting 20 more titles headed to the platform this year and next.
Headlining the showcase was the 2018 Switch-exclusive Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, the next installment in the over-the-top violent action series from Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture that began on the Wii. The game will also feature a number of collaborations with other indie game developers, the first of which was confirmed to be Hotline Miami.
A number of other established indie franchises are headed to Nintendo's platform, as the company announced the console-exclusive Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition, which will include the full five-act series when it arrives early next year, and the infinite runner Super Meat Boy Forever, currently slated for 2018. That's in addition to Shovel Knight: King of Cards (early 2018), SteamWorld Dig 2 (September 21), and Mom Hid My Game, a localized version of the mobile title Hidden My Game By Mom, which will arrive on Switch and 3DS later this year with exclusive new stages.
As would be expected from a collection of indie games, not everything shown was a sequel or a spin-off or a port. Among the original titles, Nintendo also showed a rhythm breakdancing game (Floor Kids, due this holiday season), a 2D mix of Iron Chef and Devil May Cry with puzzle game elements (Battle Chef Brigade, also set for the holidays), and a 2D golfing RPG called Golf Story (exclusively on Switch this September).
There's also Morphies Law, a four-on-four multiplayer title where shooting the opponent steals their mass. Beyond creating comically proportioned characters, this also acts as a balancing mechanic, making better players larger (and thus easier targets), while worse players will become harder to hit and have access to more parts of the map. The game will debut on Switch this winter.
This was the second Nintendo Switch Indie Showcase the company has put together. The first one aired about six months ago, just days before the launch of the Switch hardware. At the time, Nintendo said it had a lineup of 60 independently developed games ready to launch in 2017. While definitions of what qualifies as indie are subjective, a GamesIndustry.biz tally of the full Switch catalog suggests Nintendo has already reached that total with four full months to spare.
