Additional characters, crossplay, and voice acting confirmed for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl!

During a stream by famous Super Smash Bros. player HungryBox, the art director for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, Diego Hernández, hopped on and spoke about a number of features that he and the rest of the Ludosity team are planning on adding.

First of all is that they are working on the final free DLC character. For those who don't know, the game was intended to release with 22 playable characters, but had to drop two of them to get the game out on time. As a compromise, they decided to release them later on for free.

Garfield is one of the two characters. The other one is suspected to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' iconic foe, the Shredder, due to a few interesting files found when players datamined the game.

They also revealed that a couple more characters - as well as stages - are being worked on. When HungryBox asked if the new characters would "grant all of our wishes" or are "gonna blast our minds", Diego simply responded "maybe," which seems to imply that two of the characters being worked on may be Jimmy Neutron and Timmy Turner. Regardless, we'll mostly likely find out who they are as development on them gets closer to completion.

Crossplay is also in development, which will allow players to play against others who own the game, but on a different platform. (Thus, a PC player can play against Nintendo Switch, XBox One, XBox Series X/S, and PlayStation 4/5 users) Diego mentions that he and the team were planning on including this on launch, but felt they needed to test it out more before they included it.

Finally, Diego mentioned that they are adding a "highly requested feature," which was all but outright said to be voice acting. A very common complaint amongst reviewers was that all of the characters are completely silent in the game. While a reason was never given, it's often suspected by fans that voices never happened because of budget constraints, but it seems that the game's success has finally cleared that problem.

While a date for all of these has not been said, crossplay is expected to be released sometime in Q1 of 2022.

Alternate costumes arrive in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl!

As revealed a couple of days ago on the the official Twitter page, alternate costumes have finally arrived in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl as part of a free update!

Leonardo and Michelangelo's alternate costume has them in a black-n-white color scheme, making them resemble the 1984 Leo and Mikey from the original Mirage comic book. Meanwhile, April's costume is based on the "Channel 6 Newsvan" toy.

These range from SpongeBob wearing the #1 Soda Drinking Hat, Purple Reptar, and Leonardo and Michelangelo sporting black-n-white colors to resemble the 1984 turtles from the original Mirage comics!

Zim sporting his iconic "human disguise." Sadly, GIR doesn't wear his "dog disguise" when Zim is wearing this.

The bad news is that each character only gets one. According to Thaddeus - one of the producers for the game -  they had planned to add simple recolors for all of the characters. (SpongeBob, for instance, would've been recolored to have Patrick's, Squidward's, and Mr. Krabs's color scheme) However, for whatever reason, Nickelodeon said no to the idea, wanting the characters to only have "canon alts" instead (In other words, the developers could only use outfits the characters have worn in their shows, or in merchandising.) While it is great to have at least something to help one character stand out from another in mirror matches, a few characters suffer from minimal differences that are hard to spot at a glance.

Survey needs you to spot the difference between Korra's original outfit (left) and her alternate costume (right).

You can check out the video here!

Which alternate costume is your favorite? Tell us in the comments below!

Win a SpongeBob or Leonardo-themed Xbox Series X Console and controller!

In celebration of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl's release, Microsoft is making two custom-themed Xbox Series X consoles and controllers based on two of the playable characters in the game: SpongeBob from SpongeBob SquarePants, and Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

To enter, one must be following the official Xbox Twitter account. After doing so, they must go to this post and retweet it with the text, "#XboxAllStarBrawlsweepstakes". The contest will end October 24th, 2021, where one of the winners will receive the SpongeBob-themed console, while the other one will receive the Leonardo-themed console. Additional rules can be read here.

THQ Nordic announces SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake!

During THQ Nordic's 10 Anniversary Stream, an unexpected surprise announcement was made at the tail end: SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is in development!

While gameplay wasn't shown, it's story has been revealed on Steam. SpongeBob and Patrick meet a mysterious woman named Kassandra, who give the duo a vial of Mermaid Tears, which are said to be capable of granting wishes to those of pure heart. Excited at this prospect, SpongeBob and Patrick's wishes start going out of control, eventually tearing a hole in time and space! 

Said hole also begins pouring Space Jelly all over Bikini Bottom, and creating portals to various dimensions called "Wishworlds." These Wishworld portals end up sucking in SpongeBob and Patrick's friends, causing them to get lost in the strange and bizarre lands.

SpongeBob and Patrick now have to head off to not only save their friends, but also to find a way to close the rip in time and space! Meanwhile, Kassandra seems to be off performing her own devious plans...

Meanwhile, the game promises to have 30 spongetastic costumes for SpongeBob to use in his adventure, such as SnailBob and SpongeGar. There will also be a total of 7 distinct Wishworlds, such as Wild West Jellyfish Fields and Halloween Rock Bottom.

Additionally, all of the characters showing up will have their voice actors from the show to voice them in this game. The game will also have a total of 101 songs, one of which includes Sweet Victory, which plays during the trailer.

THQ Nordic is also responsible for the developing the SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated game, so The Cosmic Shake should be in good hands.

The game is still in development, but is planning to come to PlayStation 4, XBox One, and PC via Steam. A Switch port was also confirmed via THQ Nordic's official Twitter.

 Are you excited for The Cosmic Shake? Tell us your thoughts below!

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl release date confirmed, DLC and more in the works!

Yesterday on Game Informer, an interview with the CEO of Ludosity, Joel Nyström, by John Carson was posted. During the interview, Joel talked about their current project, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and revealed some new info!

One such example is that the roster was picked by both the devs of Ludosity, as well as their publisher, GameMill Entertainment. Joel mentions how they wanted fun characters from the shows they liked watching, such as Nigel Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys. He also notes that Nickelodeon was okay with their suggestion for characters, though there were a few that were rejected due to global licensing issues, though without specifying who they were.

Joel also revealed that he and his company have noticed that a lot of competitive Super Smash Bros. players have been keeping tabs on the game. He says that he and his team are happy about this, as the game being competitively viable for tournaments was one of their priorities from day one, and was even specifically requested by Nickelodeon. They also made sure to include rollback net code, which will allow players to have a stable connection with others.

When it comes to the game's full roster, it will have a total of twenty characters upon release, with two more coming afterwards as free DLC. He then teased that more DLC characters would be in the works, and for fans to look forward to it!

When asked about voice acting, Joel revealed that it isn't in the game, as they were more focused on delivering the best possible gameplay experience. However, he does note that it could happen later on down the road.

Finally, Joel confirms that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will release on October 5th, 2021. Previously, this was assumed to be the release date due to the Nintendo Online Store listing the game's preorder as such.

What about you? Are you excited for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl? Tell us in the comments below!

SpongeBob's moveset showcased in a video for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl!

 

Yesterday, the official Gamemill YouTube channel uploaded a video that shows off all of SpongeBob's moves in explicit detail

The person hosting the video is Markus Villalobos, developer at Fair Play Labs. He reveals that SpongeBob is intended to be a beginner character. He has no real strengths, but he has no weaknesses either, allowing SpongeBob to reasonably take on just about everyone.

After showing off all of SpongeBob's moves, Markus then plays a few rounds to show off some ideas and combos players can expect to use.

Notably, a few weeks ago on the official Twitter page, they posted an image of SpongeBob and his moveset. They then showed Patrick's moveset two days later, followed by Sandy four days later. It is currently unknown if Gamemill Entertainment is planning on doing more showcase videos for the other characters

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is planned to be released on October 5th, 2021, for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 4 and 5, and PC.