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The new Battletoads gets a late August 2020 release date

A new trailer showed off a wealth of the cartoonish antics and enjoyable beat'em-up co-op coming in the Battletoads reboot, as well as a release date.

TJ Denzer

July 31, 2020 8:04 AM

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We saw a lot of interesting things during the July Xbox Series X Games Showcase presentation, but perhaps one of the oddest omissions from the show was any mention of the Battletoads reboot coming from Dlala Studios and Rare. Curiously enough, a little over a week after that presentation, Rare and Dlala have dropped an all-new trailer for Battletoads featuring a wealth of new features and a confirmed late August release date.

Rare and Dlala Studios dropped the new Battletoads trailer on the Xbox YouTube channel on July 31, 2020. Coming on August 20 to Xbox One and PC, the trailer is big on the cartoonish antics that has always been associated with the Battletoads. It also takes an extended moment to show us that the notorious turbo bike segments are returning for some reason (hopefully the section won’t keep 99% of players from finishing the game). More interestingly, it seems like a prequel of sorts with the toads teaming up with their former enemy, the Dark Queen, rather than fighting her.

Battletoads has been quiet for quite a while, with Rare and Dlala having gone pretty much silent since the game was first shown at Xbox’s E3 2019 presentation. We thought for sure we’d be seeing the game during the July Xbox Series X Games Showcase, but for whatever reason, it was completely absent from the event. There’s plenty of reasons to speculate as to why we’re seeing this trailer a week after the presentation instead of during it, but maybe it’s best to just say, “better late than never.”

For what it’s worth, the trailer looked pretty good. It looks like Battletoads is nearly half Saturday morning kids cartoon, half 3-player, couch co-op beat’em-up. The animation looks cleaner than the first time we saw it and the cutscenes look enjoyable. All-in-all, the Battletoads reboot looks like it’s shaping up to be a fun romp through nostalgia that will also be appealing to new players as well. God help us if turbo bikes are as hard as they were in 1991 though. We’ll find out when the game comes out on August 20.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.