Here's everything announced during Nintendo's latest Indie World showcase
Axiom Verge 2! Necrobarista! Tetris Effect! Lots More!
It was a busy old Indie World showcase this evening, with Nintendo serving up another brisk - but extremely eventful - look at some of the new titles heading to Switch between right now and into next year. Headliners included surprise launches for Axiom Verge 2 and Boyfriend Dungeon, not to mention an upcoming release for the superb Tetris Effect: Connected, but if you missed the show and want a convenient catch-up, you'll find everything announced below.
Necrobarista: Final Pour, an enhanced version of the acclaimed visual-novel-style adventure from Route 59, is launching as a timed console exclusive on Switch today. Once again, the stylishly told story focusses on a magical Melbourne cafe where the dead are granted one last night to mingle with the living, but Final Pour introduces new narrative content, remastered visuals, plus a new Studios mode, where players can create their own dialogue and stories.
Necrobarista isn't the only game launching on Switch, however; head to the eShop right now and you'll find Axiom Verge 2, the long-awaited follow-up to developer Thomas Happ's acclaimed 2015 retro-styled Metroid-a-like, as well as vibrant life-sim-style adventure Garden Story - a timed console exclusive on Switch that charts a sentient grape's attempts to fend of the omnipresent Rot and help rejuvenate an island and its inhabitants.
Moving on, developer Kitfox Games' "shack-and-slash" dungeon crawling adventure Boyfriend Dungeon - in which players can date a slew of sexy weapons - is also now available on Switch, as is GrizzlyGames' sublime minimalist city building strategy delight Islanders: Console Edition. This one, which originally released on PC back in 2019, hoovered up an enormous amount of my time as I succumbed to its soothing rhythms of building placement and score maximising, so consider this a recommendation from me.
That's not quite it for today's releases though! Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition - a version of Monomi Park's much-loved (and thoroughly adorable) exploratory sci-fi farming adventure - is out now on Switch's eShop, as is Curious Expedition 2. This second outing for Maschinen-Mensch's excellent roguelike 19th century expedition sim is just as compelling as its predecessor, conjuring up a fresh batch of fantastical, often hair-raising survival adventures.
A little further afield, there's developer Pixpil's gorgeous pixel art adventure Eastward, which comes to Switch on 16th September as a timed console exclusive.
That's followed by Tetris Effect: Connected - the enhanced multiplayer version of Eurogamer's Game of the Year 2018 - which brings its hypnotic light-and-sound-show reimagining of the classic block puzzler to Switch on 8th October.
Further out still is TOEM: A Photo Adventure, a relaxed camera-based puzzler from developer Something We Made that launches on Switch this autumn. Cast in the role of an amateur photographer on a journey to see a magical phenomenon known as TOEM, players will need to whip out their camera and complete various photography themed quests for NPCs in order to scrape together the bus fare needed to travel from region to region and reach their goal.
As winter rolls in, Switch players will be able to get their hands on Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, a block-matching spin-off adventure for developer Yacht Club Games' retro platform hero, as well as winemaking simulator Hundred Days. Additionally, developer Four Quarters' wildly compulsive Loop Hero - which sees players placing building, terrain, and enemy cards around a randomly generated path to create a survivable (but hopefully lucrative) looping expedition - also has a winter ETA on Switch.
Next up is Far: Changing Tides, the gorgeously atmospheric follow-up to acclaimed post-apocalyptic vehicle adventure Far: Lone Sails, which is coming to Switch early next year. Once again, the experience - which developer Okomotive calls a "relaxing, accessible and meditative adventure" - is built around genteel side-scrolling vehicular management, but, this time, instead of a tank-y trundle across a dried-out ocean, players embark on boat-based adventure above and beneath the waves.
Also due next year: Leikir Studio's intriguing Metal Slugs Tactics - which turns the classic run-and-gunner into a grid-based tactical warfare game - and developer Team Reptile's striking Bomb Rush Cyberpunk, which arrives as a timed console exclusive. You might have seen this one doing the rounds recently, but, if not, it's heavily inspired by Sega's classic Jet Set Radio, complete with all the grinding and graffiti-ing you might conceivably hope for.
Rounding out the indie offerings newly confirmed to be heading to Switch in 2022, there's System Era Softworks' interplanetary sandbox adventure Astroneer, LumbearJack (in which an ecology minded bear goes on an axe-wielding, puzzle-based rampage to thwart industrial giant Evil Works), and, finally, extremely silly multiplayer party game Gang Beasts.