After almost 14 years of waiting, fans of Square Enix's cult classic Nintendo DS JRPG The World Ends With You only have just over a month left to wait for the release of its long anticipated sequel, NEO: The World Ends With You. Surprisingly revealed near the end of 2020, NEO: The World Ends With You is finally gearing up for launch next month, and to commemorate it Square Enix has revealed that a demo for the game will release on the Nintendo eShop tomorrow.
The World Ends With You was first released in July 2007 for the Nintendo DS and soon became a cult classic, blending use of both the top and bottom screens of the console for a unique action JRPG experience. After its release, Square Enix did little to renew interest in the series outside of a mobile port of the game, and featuring some of the game's characters in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Despite this, character designer Tetsuya Nomura claimed he still wanted to return for a sequel to The World Ends With You. In 2018, the publisher released The World Ends With You: Final Remix for Nintendo Switch, which included a new story scenario that hinted towards a follow up to the game.
After the announcement of an anime adaptation in 2020, NEO: The World Ends With You was finally announced to be coming to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in July 2021. Now, as the game is gearing up for launch next month on July 27th, the 14th anniversary of the original game's Japanese release, Square Enix has announced that NEO: The World Ends With You will receive a demo on June 25th, over a month ahead of launch. The demo will release on the PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop tomorrow and will allow players' progress to transfer to the full game when it launches next month.
The demo takes place during the first two in-game days of NEO: The World Ends With You and follows Rindo, a young boy trapped in the endless "Reapers' Game," a battle for life and death on the streets of Shibuya Tokyo. Unlike the DS original, this sequel takes up a more combo-focused action approach to combat, relying on character positioning and use of "Pin" abilities instead of relying on the touch screen.
While announcing the release of the upcoming demo, Square Enix also revealed that the game will be released on PC later this summer as an Epic Games Store exclusive title. The publisher also released what it dubs the "Final Trailer" for NEO: The World Ends With You.
NEO: The World Ends With You will release on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on July 27th 2021, a PC version will release later in summer 2021.