GameCentral speaks to the makers of Konami’s newest reboot: a four-player co-op recreation that’s the most enjoyable third party exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2.
No one can complain about the quantity of launch games being released alongside the Nintendo Switch 2, however sadly they’re nearly all ports and remasters of current third party titles. There’s solely two first party Nintendo video games – Mario Kart World and Welcome Tour – and solely two exclusive third party titles: this and future racer Fast Fusion, from Fast RMX maker Shin’en. That’s a budget-priced indie title although, whereas this can be a reboot of an outdated Konami franchise that we occur to have been followers of again in the late nineties.
We’re not even going to take a position as to why Konami retains reviving smaller franchises like this, whereas leaving Castlevania on the shelf, however it’s simple sufficient to see why a four-player co-op recreation with a household pleasant vibe would appear like a good suggestion for a Switch 2 launch title.
We received to play a number of ranges from the recreation at a preview occasion final week, and it was a whole lot of enjoyable. We’re undecided it’s quite fundamental visuals have been the greatest concept, since they will appear quite low-cost and infantile, however this can be a stable recreation with some enjoyably meaty puzzles, which may simply find yourself as the Switch 2’s first hidden gem.
Survival Kids was initially launched in 1999 for the Game Boy Color, though in Japan and Europe it was referred to as Stranded Kids – for subsequent entries it switched to the identify Lost In Blue in the West, the final of which was on the Wii in 2008.
For as soon as, the American identify made extra sense although, as the authentic is one in every of the very first entries in the survival recreation style, greater than a decade earlier than the idea turned extra commonplace. As such, you foraged for meals to maintain you going, whereas attempting to construct buildings and rafts so as to enable you escape the desert island you have been caught on – assume a comfy sim like Stardew Valley however with the capacity to starve to loss of life.
‘We were looking through the back catalogue of Konami titles, looking for games that we thought would be ripe for doing an appropriate reinvention of. And you’re completely proper, the authentic recreation, on Game Boy Color, was an nearly a template for what we now know as the survival recreation,’ Konami artistic director Richard Jones advised us.
‘It was very open-ended, it was very exhausting, there was a whole lot of trial and error – you actually did must bang your head towards it, to truly get anyplace. But what we beloved about it was the concept of children on a desert island.
‘You look on the cover of the original Game Boy Color game and there was always a boy and a girl, so there was always two kids but you only ever played a single-player game. So, one of the first thoughts was: ‘How do we make this into a multiplayer game for modern audiences?’’
The new Survival Kids has the similar premise as the authentic, in the sense that it’s additionally a Robinson Crusoe simulator, however it’s not a survival recreation and no one’s going to be dying as a result of they couldn’t discover sufficient coconuts. Instead, it’s a co-operative puzzle recreation, with as much as 4 of you stranded on a sequence of islands (which are literally large turtles). There’s one thing about gathering Harmony Stones as nicely, however mainly you begin off on one island and must journey throughout it to construct a raft to get to the subsequent.
You have a little bit base camp you’ll be able to construct (and pack as much as transfer elsewhere) the place you’ll be able to prepare dinner meals to offer you a stamina increase – which is want to maneuver or dig up some heavier objects – and swap between numerous gadgets like a fan (for producing wind), an umbrella (for gliding brief distances) and a fishing rod (not only for fishing however snagging distant gadgets and switches), whose blueprints you uncover alongside the approach.
Raw supplies comparable to wooden, stone, and vines must be mined however this can be a trivial process, particularly if another person helps at the similar time, to hurry issues up. Although if you happen to’re enjoying with younger children simply bringing sources to the crafting field is beneficial busywork, that begins to grow to be barely harking back to Overcooked.
These supplies are sometimes used to craft climbing nets and bridges, however you quickly get onto extra complicated puzzles, that contain issues like controlling platforms to entry new areas and neutralising statues that spit projectiles at you. We by no means received caught whereas enjoying however a few of the puzzles did take some brainpower, which is encouraging for grownup gamers.
‘That’s precisely the stability we have been attempting to make,’ says Jones. (*2*)
‘But at the same time, you can still make puzzles challenging. The idea was never to make this something you could just breeze through. The idea was to make the systems and the gameplay easy to understand and then the challenge in the puzzle and the actual execution of it,’ he provides.
How to make a Nintendo Switch 2 launch recreation
Although all the earlier Survival Kids video games have been made in Japan, this reboot is by Unity – the makers of the Unity graphics engine, whose emblem you’ll have seen earlier than the begin of many indie and AA titles. However, not like Epic Games and their Unreal Engine, Unity has by no means made a recreation themselves earlier than and that is their first correct foray into improvement.
‘We have, behind the scenes, for years, helped developers who are using Unity engine to achieve what they need to. So, we’ve helped with efficiency optimisation, porting Unity throughout to a brand new platform, and that is actually useful as a result of it permits us to manufacturing confirm all new variations of Unity,’ studio head and producer Andrew Dennison advised us.
‘We can test them on customer projects, but there’s a restrict to that as the venture’s not yours and there’s possibly solely a slim window of what you’re .
‘So the opportunity we saw, probably about three years ago, was ‘How could we do something bigger?’ What if, for a writer, we constructed a whole recreation and that might allow us to check the breadth of the engine, and notably if we might – which we someway managed to do with this recreation – align it with a brand new platform launch. Because we will show that Unity is prepared for Nintendo Switch 2.’
‘We met at Gamescom in 2022 and Unity were looking for a project. I was looking for an external studio to work on Konami IP. It soon became evident that we had lots of shared goals, lots of shared appetites, for what we wanted to do. We both wanted to do multiplayer co-op, social game experience with all the family – so that was how it started,’ provides Jones.
‘The game started off completely platform agonistic. We knew what we wanted to make, we knew our target audience, and this time, in the planning stages, the next Nintendo console was way off in the distance, we didn’t know a lot about it.
‘It wasn’t till we received a little bit additional into that, after pre-production and into the early components of improvement that the launch window began to solidify and that aligned with our schedule. And that was once we first sat up and began considering critically that we might hit the launch date with this.’
Maths followers may have already labored out that meaning Unity made the complete recreation in lower than three years. Just over two, the truth is, in keeping with Dennison, who reveals that full improvement solely began in March 2023.
Compared to the 5 or extra years {that a} trendy AAA recreation can take – and the horrible value for the developer if it’s not an instantaneous hit – and out of the blue Survival Kids’ modest visuals make rather more sense.
‘I don’t have an up-to-date reference for the way AAA studios are working issues however I do know for certain that there are economies available by preserving a staff tight, well-organised, and what was nice working with Konami – and I genuinely imply this – is there was a ticking clock,’ says Dennison.
‘You have this much time and that forces you to make the right decisions. We knew a window, so we knew we had to have the game done by end of ’24, so we’d have sufficient time. And it’s actually helpful to have these deadlines, as a result of it forces you to make these choices.’
The recreation includes a comparatively sensible physics engine, in order that if one thing drops in a river it’s going to float downstream and must be collected later, whereas explosive fruits will be rolled or catapulted in the air. You can play by yourself – and we did for about 20 minutes as a check – and it’s superb, however it’s rather more pleasant when everyone seems to be working round, attempting to seize the glory for themselves and blaming each mistake on another person.
‘Some of the emergent silliness comes out of the physics. When you cut a tree down it will roll down a slope into the water when you’re you’re attempting to seize it,’ says Jones. ‘It’s superb how tough it may be for 2 individuals to hold a log.’
The recreation will be performed by as much as 4 gamers on-line and that was simulated at the occasion, by enjoying with different journos. There’s additionally a two-player sofa co-op mode which you’ll be able to play on the similar console and with just one Joy-Con every. This labored nice too and means you’ll be able to play it co-op while not having to pay for Nintendo Switch Online or anything.
We can’t say how a lot longevity the recreation has till we’ve performed the complete factor however there are numerous secrets and techniques and costume unlockables, which together with the time you’re taking to complete decide what number of stars you’re awarded once you full an island, with the biggest one we performed taking up half-hour.
Although we suspect the quite bland visuals, and a price ticket that appears only a tad too excessive, are going to be obstacles, we loved our time with Survival Kids and may’t wait to play it extra with family and friends. In phrases of gameplay our principal concern now’s how the recreation balances it’s very easy early ranges with the extra complicated puzzles of afterward, however so long as it’s a easy segue it ought to be superb.
You can by no means have sufficient sofa co-op video games and whereas this doesn’t essentially appear to be it wanted to be a Switch 2 exclusive so as to exist, it definitely does match Nintendo’s vibe, whereas additionally being one thing novel and completely different in comparison with the different launch titles.
Formats: Nintendo Switch 2
Price: £44.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Unity
Release Date: fifth June 2025
Age Rating: 3
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