In the first of THQ Nordic’s three planned announcements, the company has revealed that SpongeBob SquarePants is back in a remake of a 2003 3D platformer featuring the yellow one and his underwater pals, coming to Switch in 2020.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a remake of the original console game which was developed by multiple studios and released across all the major platforms of the day. It was the GameCube/PS2/Xbox era for those of you who weren’t gaming back then, and yes, SpongeBob really is that old!
In the game you battled against rampant robots in order to save Bikini Bottom. It received a mixed to positive critical reception but obviously sold by the truckload, entering the Player’s Choice range on GameCube as well as the corresponding big seller budget lines on the other consoles.
THQ began the lead up to the announcement by drumming up some hype on Twitter, initially to mixed results, although people soon cottoned on:
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea but isn’t coming to E3?@SpongeBob coming to PC and consoles!@Nickelodeon @Purple_Lamp + @THQNordic are happy to announce SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated!#SpongeBob #SpongeBobRehydrated https://t.co/RpXtIj5XMT
— THQ Nordic (@THQNordic) June 5, 2019
THQ stated that the game won’t be coming to E3, and details on this remake are thin on the ground at the moment, with the above teaser reveal being pretty much all we have to go on. It’s apparently being made by Viennese dev team Purple Lamp Studios, a relatively new outfit made up of veteran developers with only The Guild 3 to its name. The YouTube trailer mentions a brand new multiplayer mode, though, so fans of SpongeBob and Patrick will want to keep an eye on this one.
