During today's New Game Plus Expo, developer Suda51, best known for the No More Heroes series, announced that his classic mystery visual novels, The Silver Case and its sequel The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, will be coming to the West at last in their combined form.
The Silver Case 2425, which contains both games, will see an English release for the Nintendo Switch this summer. This combined title first debuted in Japan for the PlayStation 4 in 2018 before releasing for the Switch in February of this year.
The Silver Case, which initially released for the original PlayStation console in 1999, takes place in a fictional city referred to as "24 Wards." When a bizarre string of murders occurs in the city, the Heinous Crimes Division must solve the case. The sequel, which released in 2005 for mobile devices, takes place seven years later and features a new string of murders in the previously hidden "25th Ward" district.
Suda51 was interested in bringing the game to the West shortly after its release, but experienced difficulty due to the linguistic nature of some of the puzzles involved. He was unable to find a team interested in translating the project for over a decade. In that time, a planned Nintendo DS port of the first game was cancelled and the mobile version of 25th Ward was shut down.
Eventually, Suda51 worked together with Nippon Ichi Software and NIS America to produce remastered versions of both titles for the PlayStation 4, which released in America for PC and PlayStation 4. The popularity of these remasters resulted in the development of the combined version, The Silver Case 2425.
Both Silver Case titles combine point-and-click gameplay with a text-heavy visual novel style and a variety of puzzles, mini-games, and quiz questions. It gained notoriety for its unique art style, which combines 2D and 3D animation with real world photographs and live-action sequences.
The Silver Case 2425 will release for Nintendo Switch on July 6, 2021.
Source: NIS America