Dave the Diver plunges to Nintendo Switch on October 26th
Preorders start today and there’s even a demo.
PC indie standout Dave the Diver is coming to the Nintendo Switch, the game’s first proper console launch. The title was teased at today’s Nintendo Direct livestream event and it releases next month, on October 26th. However, for the curious, a free demo drops for the Switch today. This is good news for gamers, as Dave the Diver has long-seemed like the perfect match for the Switch, due to its bite-sized gameplay segments.
What’s all the fuss about? Dave the Diver casts you as, wait for it, a guy named Dave who dives for a living. So you spend your days exploring an ever-changing underwater wonderland, catching fish, battling with sharks and, occasionally, betting on seahorse races. Once you finish adventuring, the game shifts gears. You spend your nights operating a sushi restaurant, so those fish you catch get transformed into delectable menu items.
The daytime adventures are sort of like an underwater Metroidvania while the nighttime restaurant management is a combination of a Kairosoft sim and the arcade classic Tapper. It shouldn’t work, as the gameplay loops are extremely different, but everything meshes splendidly. There’s also an overarching adventure that may or may not include a giant shrimp wearing boxing gloves.
The longer you play Dave the Diver, the more gameplay elements it introduces. Eventually, you’ll unlock a simple farming sim, kitchen mini-games akin to something like Cooking Mama and your very own fish nursery so you can breed hammerhead sharks with reckless abandon.
We always knew it was coming to Switch, and now we have a launch date. Check out the demo to see if the gameplay jives with your tastes. There’s no word on if the title will eventually launch on other consoles. In other news, today's Nintendo Direct also teased a remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and a battle royale take on the classic racer F-Zero.
