During its special video presentation today, Yacht Club Games announced Shovel Knight Dig, a joint development project between itself and the talented UK developer, Nitrome - previously responsible for games like Bomb Chicken. This new title has already been in development for more than a year, but there's still a long road ahead, so there's no concrete release date or platforms confirmed just yet.
In saying this, there will be a Switch demo of the game playable at PAX West this weekend. Players will be able to try out Spore Knight's stage, the Mushroom Mines. For now, though, here's exactly what you can expect from this new adventure along with some screenshots:
When Drill Knight and his dastardly digging crew blast apart Shovel Knight’s peaceful campsite and steal his loot, he grabs his trusty Shovel Blade and starts tunnelling after them! Meet new friends and foes, visit strange lands, and outfit yourself in your quest to keep the entire land from collapsing underfoot! Jump, slash, and dig your way down an ever-changing chasm of mystery in Shovel Knight Dig, an all-new Shovel Knight adventure!
- The first Shovel Knight adventure in glorious high color pixel graphics and sound. Fluid animation, scaling, rotation, and parallax create the most convincing Shovel Knight world yet!
- Every adventure is different! Shovel Knight Dig levels have been meticulously crafted, then stitched together using proprietary generation techniques for infinite replayability.
- Jump, slash, and dig your way in an all-new direction – down! Rely on your trusty Shovel Drop, then dig through huge swaths of dirt with all-new Speed Shovel mechanics.
- Grow in power and wealth as you descend into the depths of the earth. Emerge with untold riches to outfit Shovel Knight further, unlocking permanent items and upgrades to your adventuring equipment.
- Grow in power and wealth as you descend into the depths of the earth. Emerge with untold riches to outfit Shovel Knight further, unlocking permanent items and upgrades to your adventuring equipment.
- New Knights, new characters, and new enemies abound, but fear not! Shovel Knight Dig features Shovel Knight’s signature storytelling, humor, and maybe even some familiar faces..
- Another pulse-pounding soundtrack in a new style by astonishing virtuoso Jake Kaufman!
The first collaboration between Yacht Club Games and Nitrome, pixel masters!
Is this a game you're interested to dig into? Leave a comment down below.
[source yachtclubgames.com]
Comments 43
Oh, I thought this was gonna be a collab game with SteamWorld Dig. >.<
@Joeynator3000 gameplay does look very similar which is definitely a good thing.
Sweet, Yacht Club are great devs, though ashamedly I still haven't played Shovel Knight, I've really been holding out for the physical version on Switch, but man, it's been a while since that was announced and even longer since this game was released, so I might bite the bullet, but chances are I'll just wait a bit longer.
I hope there would be a 3DS version...
I am absolutely interested.
@sweth_t There will probably be an article on it, but the physical edition was confirmed for December in today's presentation as well.
Steamworld Dig crossed with Drill Dozer ? count me in !
Nitrome? That name looks familiar. I feel like they had made some flash games in the past or something of that sort.
@Klunk23 woah holy crap! Sweet! Guess I'll wait till Christmas to pick that up, along with the amiibo too. $40 seems like a steal for how much content is in the game. Shovel of Hope, Plague Knight, Spectre Knight, King of Cards, and the fighting mode. I can't wait, thanks for letting me know.
@Elvie they made a ton of flash games in the past. I don't remember what most of them were called, but they were surprisingly high effort for flash games.
@Joeynator3000 Exactly what I thought, but considering he's Shovel Knight a digging based game in similar vein makes a lot of sense. This one looks like it's more platforming based though.
I hate it when game companies announce games with no platforms. It's like they want to prove the fans will buy it so they can make the game system companies have a bidding war over who gets it on their platform
Nitrome making this?
@ALinkttPresent In this case, there's a far better explanation. The game is likely 2+ years out, and as such will probably target the PS5 / XBox Scarlett / Switch / PC. But since PS5/Scarlett aren't officially announced yet, nor do they know when they'll be able to get dev kits (I suspect indies won't be able to for PS5 for the first year), they need to hold off.
@Elvie @sweth_t
They did! In my opinion, Nitrome made the best flash games. They were always high quality and well animated. My favourite game from them was Final Ninja Zero, where you were a ninja and you could throw ninja stars in any direction and attach rope to them and swing around the environment while taking out enemies. And my other favourite was Mutiny which was basically worms but with pirates.
I thought they’d at least mention King of Cards and Showdown.
This is cool too.
I actually enjoyed Bomb Chicken more than Shovel Knight, so I'm probably interested in this for unconventional reasons.
@Joeynator3000 That would have been so much cooler!
Definitely welcome news, though I'm one of the few who still hasn't played the first game yet. XD
@Joeynator3000 I thought the exact same thing lol.
@melwheezy
Switch makes much more sense for the devs of course. But I would love getting to play this with good 3D effects like the Mighty Switch Force games have on 3DS. This will never be a reality though.
Where are all the Shovel Knight news on this site. The stream had a ton of updates including one that, unfortunately, will cause controversy for all the wrong reasons.
Not that this doesn’t look good but I really wish they would just get King if Cards out. By Deecember it’ll have been nearly three years in development! And originally they said they were working on it side by side with Plague in order to get it out faster lol
Looks really lovely but I really want them to complete their 5+ year journey wih Shovel Knight King of Cards and that fighting game. I hope there's no more delays for those.
Is this a full fledged sequel or more of a side game?
@Giygas_95 Looks more like a spin off.
Ah! I’m glad that a 16-bit-esque Shovel Knight game has more of a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis sounding than SNES sounding music. It suits it well and continues the chiptune aesthetics.
Mr Driller 2.0 and that is a great thing.
Still not sure about this, but it looks interesting, especially the 16bit format
@BoyfriendOfDeath It's a collab game. So yeah, a spin-off. But it looks really fun. So I'm interested to say the least.
Shovel knight meets Steamworld Dig...it looks amazing. A pity that it is procedurally generated, but this looks to good to pass up.
...but what about King of cards, Yacht club games?!
Update: King of cards is complete and seems to come "soon", wich is apparently December. I have yet to see that.
@brandonbwii What's controversial? I just watched the stream.
@melwheezy It doesn't have stereo 3D
@Elvie they made a bunch of mobile games, that’s probably where u seen the name before
So is this more if a spin off than a sequel...?
I guess Image & Form should be flattered?
@RainbowGazelle I don’t want to start anything. Nintendo Life May mention it later.
@brandonbwii @RainbowGazelle Of course I don't know exactly what he may be referring to, but I'm also not afraid to start drama. However, this topic shouldn't cause controversy/drama, so...
Brandon, you're talking about the addition of the "they" pronoun aren't you?
Edit: This is just a guess, but I couldn't think of anything else. Let me know if I'm wrong though
@Zoya Yes. Also I’m glad Nintendo Life finally decided to report more Shovel Knight news. Better late than never I guess.
Can we still change characters' genders?
This looks INCREDIBLE!
@Elvie Googleplay Android games - https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=7081306527254237283
Considering the traditions in bonkers art and meticulous game design of both these studios, I'm SOLD.
Very nice. Looking forward to it.
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