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Bandai Namco December 15 event - What's in store for Switch owners?

Dead Souls and Xenosaga remasters, anyone?

Bandai Namco December 15 event - What's in store for Switch owners?
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Bandai Namco is due to hold an event on December 15th to announce a bunch of new Nintendo Switch games.

As one of the biggest and best established Japanese developers around, this could be a pretty big deal for Nintendo's flourishing console.

As strong as the Switch's 2017 sales have been, this has largely been off Nintendo's back. The company could really do with more third party support to shore up its new console for 2018 and beyond.

Thankfully, it looks like we're going to get just that. So what are we expecting from Bandai Namco this Friday?

Here's what's rumoured.

Dark Souls Remaster

Rumour has it that Bandai Namco will be announcing a remastered version of its classic action-RPG, Dark Souls. If you haven't heard of Dark Souls, it's only one of the most influential games of the past decade.

Launching in 2007 for PS3 and Xbox 360, FromSoftware's hardcore fantasy won massive critical acclaim - and surprising commercial success to boot.

With weighty combat, a brutal permadeath system, and a wonderfully enigmatic and atmospheric dark fantasy universe, we would love to see this appearing on Switch.

My Hero Academia

This video game adaptation of the much loved anime and manga series has already been confirmed by Bandai Namco. There's already a Japanese-language website for the game, and here's a rough translation of the description from Gametsu:

"Fight, for every justice—. My Hero Academia appears as a battle action game where ‘Quirks’ collide! Experience diverse battles on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch through realistic stage destruction by using superhuman powers called 'Quirks,' and take full advantage of the buildings and walls placed throughout the stage. Go Plus Ultra with My Hero Academia: One's Justice."

Got that? Good. Care to explain it to us?

Xenosaga HD Collection

Internet rumour has it that one of the games Bandai Namco will be showing off on December 15th is another remaster in Xenosaga HD - a possible compilation (and sharpening up) of the three mainline games.

This ambitious JRPG started out life way back in the PS2 era, and was the spiritual precursor to Xenoblade Chronicles - which of course received its own Switch-based sequel recently.

Indeed, one of Xenosaga's main characters, KOS-MOS, found their way into Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

Soul Caliber 6

We know that Soul Caliber 6, the latest in Bandai Namco's weapon-based 3D beat-'em-up series, is coming to PS4 and Xbox One in 2018. But it seems likely that it will also be coming to Switch.

In certain iterations of the game's official website, 'console' has been listed as a format alongside PS4 and Xbox One. There's only one other console we can think of that referring to...

The Switch could do with a high quality one-one-one brawler (besides ARMS, of course), so this would be most welcome.

Yokai Watch 4

The final rumour suggests that the Level-5 might be bringing its massive Pokemon-like action-RPG franchise to Switch. This would seem to be a natural move, but we wouldn't get too excited.

We haven't even seen Yokai Watch 3 on 3DS here in the West yet, despite it hitting Japan some 18 months ago. There's no telling when we'd see number four outside of Japan

Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.