As part of PlayStation Paris Games Week, indie developer Drinkbox Studios announced Guacamelee 2, the follow-up to the 2013 cult “Metroidvania” hit Guacamelee. The title is currently announced for the PS4 only and slated for a 2018 release (or, according to the announcement trailer, “Coming Soon-ish”), but expect that to change within the coming months.
DrinkBox, the Toronto-based studio founded in 2008, has shown more interest in other consoles besides the PlayStation lately. Chief among these is the Nintendo Switch, which the company publicly revealed desire to work with almost exactly a year ago. Since then, DrinkBox brought Severed, their curious first-person touchscreen-centric title, to the hardware, and dropped hints toward more collaboration. In a Reddit interview following the Switch release of Severed, game designer George Degenkamp noted, “I think we’ll most likely be looking at the Switch as a platform for releases of our future titles.”
A multiplatform release for Guacamelee 2 would make sense, considering the wide reach of its predecessor. Guacamelee began life on the PlayStation 3 and Vita only, but quickly expanded to PC, Xbox 360, Wii U, PS4, and Xbox One. It was both a critical and commercial success, followed up with two enhanced versions, Gold Edition and Super Turbo Championship Edition. Thanks to its frantic pace, jolly sense of humor, and satisfying close-quarters combat, the game maintained a strong identity within the vast “MetroidVania” genre and is fondly remembered as one of the best.
Though we’ve only seen about a minute and a half of Guacamelee 2, there are a couple of new features on display already. Aside from the new environments and enemies, there appears to be a new grappling hook mechanic, as well as full four-player cooperative, a big step up from the limited two-player co-op in the original.
It’s anybody’s guess as to when “Soon-ish” is for DrinkBox Studios, but since Guacamelee is their flagship franchise as of now, expect plenty of info between now and its eventual release on—if nothing else—the PS4.