AWAY Shuffle Dungeon DS announced for Europe

Good news for Nintendo handheld owning RPG fans. As if you don't get enough of this kind of thing already.

Er, anyway. Virgin Play has announced a deal with AQ Interactive to publish its DS title AWAY Shuffle Dungeon across Europe (and other PAL territories).

Which means that come this autumn, we're going to be getting a game that's been crafted with the help of some top names in Japanese game development. Names that include Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and Sonic The Hedgehog's designer Naoto Ohshima, which surely is about as big a guarantee this game is going to be worth looking out for as you can have without it having the words Zelda or Grand Theft Auto in the title.

The game's decidedly spooky sounding story revolves around a village – Webb Village – which hides an ominous secret. For over a century a rare phenomenon has caused people to randomly disappear without a trace. Something which is known to the villagers as 'away'.

One day, a boy called Sword is about to become another 'away' victim when a girl called Anella jumps in the way to save him. Unfortunately, her actions have somewhat the opposite effect to the one she was after and she 'aways' not only herself but all the other villagers too, leaving Sword all alone. Clumsy girl.

So guided by a mysterious light, Sword finds his way to the Shuffle Dungeon where his adventure to bring back the villagers begins.

As far as RPG plots go, it's already sounding like a winner to us. We'll be following news of AWAY closely over the coming months. And you can too by clicking 'Track It!' below.