With the recent boom in popularity for remakes, last year's SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated was one of the most surprising titles to come from the recent trend brought on by the likes of Shadow of the Colossus and Resident Evil 2.
While it wasn't perfect, Battle For Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated resurrected one of the most beloved cult classic 3D platformers from the fifth generation of console gaming. Now, thanks to the success of the game, THQ Nordic has announced that developer Purple Lamp Studios will be returning to Bikini Bottom for a brand new SpongeBob SquarePants 3D platformer, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake.
Development on Battle For Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated first started in 2018 when THQ Nordic announced that it had acquired the video game rights to multiple Nickelodeon franchises, including SpongeBob SquarePants, and that it intended on reviving beloved games from the IP's past. This immediately brought on a wave of requests to remake SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom, a collect-a-thon 3D platformer developed by Heavy Iron Studios for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube that had acquired a surprising cult following due to its respect for the IP and general popularity as a respected 3D platformer
Now, with Rehydrated under its belt and mostly positive fan reception coming from the title, developer Purple Lamp Studios is taking a crack at making a brand new 3D SpongeBob SquarePants title in the form of The Cosmic Shake, a new title announced during THQ Nordic's 10th anniversary live stream. The title will follow SpongeBob and his friends unintentionally open portals to seven different worlds, all based on iconic episodes of the long-running animated series. The game's reveal trailer remakes the iconic "Sweet Victory" scene from the season 2 episode Band Geeks, which features the characters performing the song in a football stadium.
While the trailer doesn't reveal much as it is CG without any gameplay, information from THQ Nordic has revealed that it will see SpongeBob and his friends traveling between seven worlds, featuring 30 cosmetic skins that likely give the developer a lot of oppertunities to reference different episodes of the show, old and new. From the trailer, the game seems to feature a karate world, a world featuring the Flying Dutchman (in which SpongeBob appears as a snail, implying that the player will be able to transform similar to Banjo-Kazooie,) and a wild-west world. Judging from this, the game will likely have good diversity between locations.
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is in development for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.