Nintendo Direct Reveals Splatoon 3 and Project Triangle Strategy

Nintendo Direct February 2021 round-up

Nintendo just broadcast a new Nintendo Direct, filled to the brim with news and announcements for Switch.

The biggest surprises are Splatoon 3 and Star Wars: Hunters, alongside remasters of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Stubbs the Zombie In Rebel Without a Pulse. The broadcast lasted just over 50 minutes, and featured dozens of announcements.

• Nintendo Direct – 2.17.2021

Highlights

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Pyra and Mythra Reveal – March 2021
• Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout – Announcement Trailer – Summer 2021
• Outer Wilds – Announcement Trailer – Summer 2021
• Famicom Detective Club – Two Famicom Detective Club Games – May 14, 2021
• Samurai Warriors 5 – Announcement Trailer – Summer 2021
• Legend of Mana – HD Remaster Official Promotion Trailer – June 24, 2021
• Monster Hunter Rise – Apex Monsters and Rampage Mode – March 26, 2021
• Mario Golf: Super Rush – Announcement Trailer – June 25, 2021
• Tales from the Borderlands – Official Re-Launch Trailer – 2021
• Capcom Arcade Stadium – Available Now! – Out Now
• Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse – Announcement Trailer – March 16
• No More Heroes III – Announcement Trailer – August 27, 2021
• Neon White – Reveal Trailer – Winter 2021
• DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power – Suit Up and Save Metropolis – June 4, 2021
• Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville Complete Edition – Reveal Trailer – March 19, 2021
• Miitopia – Announcement Trailer – May 21, 2021
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Super Mario Collaboration Items – March 1, 2021
• Project TRIANGLE STRATEGY – Announcement Trailer – Demo Available
• Star Wars: Hunters – Announcement Trailer – TBA 2021
• Knockout City – Announcement Trailer – May 21, 2021
• World's End Club – Announcement Trailer – May 28, 2021
• NINJA GAIDEN: Master Collection – Announcement Trailer – June 10, 2021
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Expansion Pass Announcement Trailer – TBA 2021
• Bravely Default II – Final Trailer – February 26, 2021
• Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection – Official Release Date Trailer – February 25, 2021
• SaGa Frontier Remastered – Trailer – April 15, 2021
• Apex Legends – Official Double XP Trailer – March 9, 2021
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD – Announcement Trailer – July 16, 2021
• Splatoon 3 – Announcement Trailer – TBA 2022

Which beloved Nintendo designer wrote the concept for the original Famicom Detective Club?

a) Shigeru Miyamito
b) Makoto Kano
c) Yoshio Sakamoto
d) Satoru Okada

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

The chicken before the easter egg

Silicon Studio’s action RPG 3D Dot Game Heroes is crammed full of references to other games, and its loading screens are recreations of NES and SNES box art. One of the caves in the game is named From Cave, after Demon’s Souls creator From Software.

From Software published 3D Dot Game Heroes in Japan, and there are several more Demon’s Souls references littered around the game. There is also a Legend of Zelda homage: Attack enough chickens, and a swarm of them will appear to punish you.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Xbox Series S challenges developers

The Xbox Series S is the budget edition of Microsoft’s next-generation console, with less RAM and slower CPU and GPU than the high-end Xbox Series X. This is turning out to be a little problematic.

Metro developer 4A Games struggled to overcome GPU limitations, and 4A's graphics technology is not really suited to the Series S.

Workarounds: “We have a compromise solution right now, but I am not satisfied with it yet,” said Chief Technical Officer Oleksandr Shyshkovtsov. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide developer Fatshark, however, is not worried and don't think the Series S will constrain developers too much.

No wildcards: “Many developers nowadays are used to a much more dynamic ecosystem of hardware,” explained Darktide game director Anders De Geer. It's “much easier to adapt to than to for example the wide variety of PCs out in the wild”, he said.

BlizzConline secrets revealed in press kit

The BlizzConline press kit got sent out a bit too early, and that means most of the online event’s announcements have already been revealed.

The biggest surprise is World of WarCraft: Burning Crusade Classic, the first expansion for World of WarCraft Classic. It's an updated version of the original Burning Crusade, which gives World of WarCraft fans an opportunity to relive the early days of the once-dominant MMO.

Patch ahoy: The press kit also contains details about the Chains of Domination, the first major content patch for World of WarCraft: Shadowlands. Logos, screenshots and new armour sets have all been revealed – as well as a new flying ability.

More to come: There is probably more news in the press kit, but the BlizzConline event starts tomorrow anyway and will feature several channels of content for Blizzard's major series. No mention of Diablo IV news yet, so the weekend will probably still be full of surprises.

Wishlist Coromon and win a console

Fancy yourself a tamer of monsters? Feast your eyes on the retro world of Coromon, with a demo available to play right now through Steam with a planned 2021 launch. It’s a modern monster taming RPG chock full of adventure, puzzles and turn-based monster battles.

Wishlist Coromon and you can enter a competition to win a console or some Steam keys! Check out Coromon Giveaway – Win a Console of Your Choice to learn more and maybe even claim a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X or a Nintendo Switch bundle with 6 games. Good luck!

Get ready to swing the wrench your way

Remaster specialists Nightdive Studios has just tweeted a short clip showing a developer bashing an evil space monkey over the head with a wrench. Excited yet?

Well, you should be, because it means System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition will support not just VR but motion controls! Now we just need the original System Shock to get the same treatment…

VR demo of Epic Games’ Metahumans

Epic Games' Metahumans character creator for Unreal Engine will support authoring in VR. Epic Games hopes Metahumans will lower the threshold for making games with realistic, highly detailed human characters and allow even small studios to build high-end content.

• New batch of Xbox One games with enhanced framerate revealed by Microsoft and put to the test by Digital Foundry
• Free-to-play strategy MMO War Selection in Steam Early Access and just updated by developer Glyph Worlds
• Capcom adds Ghosts 'n Goblins to Capcom Arcade Stadium in a mighty patch weighing 3MB
• Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout coming to Xbox this summer and will bumble onto both Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
• The Sinking City splashes onto PlayStation 5 on February 19th, driving us mad with 4K visuals at 60FPS

Which beloved Nintendo designer wrote the concept for the original Famicom Detective Club?

ANSWER: Yoshio Sakamoto!

Even if you never heard of Detective Club before yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, you probably know some of the people who worked on it. The two Famicom Detective Club games, both for the Famicom Disk System, were based on a concept by Yoshio Sakamoto, designer of classic games like Wrecking Crew, Kid Icarus and Gumshoe.

The series’ producer was none other than Game & Watch creator Gunpei Yokoi. Only goes to show that many of the games made by Nintendo’s most important developers never made it out of Japan. Good thing they’re finally doing something about that!

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Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.