This afternoon's Nintendo Direct held many surprise announcements, including both Luigi's Mansion 3 and a new Animal Crossing game for Nintendo Switch. But one of the most interesting and understated announcements of the event was Town, a new RPG coming from Pokemon developer Game Freak. According to the Nintendo Direct Town, which is a working title and may eventually change, is a Nintendo Switch exclusive planned for release sometime in 2019.

Nintendo isn't willing to share many details regarding Town just yet but did confirm that Town will be an RPG. The game takes place entirely within a single village, said to have a major secret for players to discover. Players take on the role of an adventurer defending the town from monsters that have begun to suddenly appear. To defend the town, players will have to utilize the talents of all the town's inhabitants, perhaps even those within the castle above.

It's unclear as to whether building up or expanding the town itself will be part of Town. Perhaps just exploring and meeting the town's inhabitants are all that's involved, but knowing Game Freak there's likely more to Town's gameplay than is immediately apparent.

Town isn't Game Freak's first experimental release outside of the Pokemon franchise. The studio has a long history of releasing unique and quirky games, though none have proven the same success as the games the company is known for. Few know that Game Freak's first game for Nintendo was the Yoshi puzzle game for NES and Game Boy, originally released in 1991.

Game Freak's post-Pokemon games are much more interesting. There's the 2005 action-platformer Drill Dozer and the 2012 rhythm game HarmoKnight, each for Nintendo's handheld platforms. Game Freak would then go outside of Nintendo's publishing, working with Sega to release Tembo the Badass Elephant and self-publishing Giga Wrecker on PC. And now Game Freak's latest game is Town, yet another unique spin on a well-tread genre with all of the studio's charming and friendly personality.

More information on Town is likely to be shared in the month's to come, so look forward to future Nintendo Directs for updates.

Town is planned to release in 2018 exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.