Yacht Club Games have revealed a few things that they have planned for Shovel Knight in 2017. Firstly, the game and its expansions will be coming to the Nintendo Switch, though they refrained from discussing any other further details about the port. The original game, titled "Shovel Knight" will be re-branded as "Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope" to fit in with the naming scheme of the game's add-ons, Plague of Shadows and Specter of Torment. Sometime later on in 2017 (names and dates TBD) Yacht Club is planning to release Shovel Knight: King Knight's Campaign which will be another expansion, starring the eponymous character, as well as Shovel Knight: Battle Mode, a 4 player battle minigame. The former will be coming to all available platforms, but the latter will not release on the Nintendo 3DS or the PlayStation Vita.
Specter of Torment's development is on schedule and will be launching with a bonus Body Swap mode. Additionally, the local co-op multiplayer feature that was once exclusive to the Wii U version and Shovel Knight amiibo will now be heading to all console and PC platforms. The handheld versions of the game will not be receiving this mode either.
Another change up is that Yacht Club will be splitting the game into individual campaigns. They claim that this is being done in order to make the game more accessible for a wide variety of players. Not only will the campaigns be separated and individually priced, but the initial cost of the game will be increasing sometime this Spring. This gives people enough time to purchase the original game before the price change goes into effect. Those who already own Shovel Knight will automatically own Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, which is the collection name for all the campaigns combined. From there onward, they will continue to receive the free expansions and updates to the game just like before.
What do you think of this new reveal? Are you excited for the new game modes? Will you be picking up the Nintendo Switch version? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned tonight for live coverage of Nintendo's Switch event!
