Details of a new sequel, that is expected to be unveiled at today’s Nintendo Direct, have emerged online, alongside the long rumoured Plants Vs. Zombies remake.
A new Nintendo Direct has been rumoured ever since the launch of the console in early June but in the end today’s livestream has turned out to be only a Partner Showcase, which means third party games but nothing published by Nintendo themselves.
Upcoming games like Metroid Prime 4 will no doubt get their own showcase later in the year but today’s Direct will focus on titles that are likely to include Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Elden Ring.
Nintendo hasn’t confirmed any specific titles though, so it’s hard to know for sure, but yesterday a new game from Disgaea publisher Nippon Ichi leaked. That was the result of the publisher publishing a tweet early but now a highly reliable leaker has revealed a second game: a prequel to Octopath Traveler 1 and 2.
The information comes from Billbill-kun, who has an essentially 100% record with leaks, as his sources are based in retail rather than game development.
That means he rarely offers much detail, beyond a game’s existence, and in this case he says only that Octopath Traveler 0 is ‘about to be made official’ and will be released on Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, as well as Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
Although the first Octopath Traveler started out as a Switch exclusive the sequel was multiformat and that seems to be what’s happening here too.
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The Octopath Traveler games are old school Japanese role-players that use the HD-2D graphics engine, which Square Enix has repurposed for the ongoing series of Dragon Quest remakes – with Dragon Quest 1 & 2 also relatively likely to appear during the Nintendo Direct.
However, while Billbill-kun insists that Octopath Traveler 0 is real he does not guarantee that it will be in the Direct, that’s merely speculation based on his knowledge that it is soon to be announced.
He also speculates that SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans Of The Tide may be briefly featured, ahead of a presentation from publisher THQ Nordic on August 1. The game has not been officially announced yet, but a new SpongeBob title has been rumoured multiple times.
Plants Vs. Zombies Replanted is also ‘likely’ to be at the Direct, a remake of the 2009 hit which has also been rumoured by other sources and which Billbill-kun suggests will be released on October 23. Although, again, it’s not been officially announced by publisher EA yet.
Finally, he suggests that the Direct will probably feature Borderlands 4, which is out on October 3 – three weeks after the other versions.
That seems an obvious guess even without inside knowledge but while Billbill-kun remains uncertain about the exact details of the Direct, the news about Octopath Traveler 0, SpongeBob, and Plants Vs. Zombies is almost certainly correct and means they’re all due to be revealed at some point soon – whether it’s today or not.
We try to guess what will be in today’s Nintendo Direct
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