For such a small sponge, this Nickelodeon icon certainly has made a giant splash in pop culture. SpongeBob SquarePants has been on the air for just over 20 years now, plus a feature film and tons and tons of merchandise. This pineapple-dwelling cleaning tool has naturally been adapted into several video games as well but hasn’t hit quite the same level of success that he has in his other forms of media. The last time we saw him on our consoles in a true 3D adventure was with the SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated edition, which was a remake of the old 2003 game of the same name. With the success of that remaster, it seems THQ Nordic is ready to see if they can squeeze some more moisture out of this old sponge.
As part of their 10th-anniversary showcase, THQ Nordic announced that Purple Lamp Studios, the same team that remastered Battle for Bikini Bottom, would be making a new adventure starring everyone’s favorite undersea fry cook. This newest game is titled SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake and will bring SpongeBob and many familiar friends to all new places on their quest. While the announcement was brief, we do have some solid information on the new game to tide you over. Here’s everything we know about SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake.
Further reading
- Everything we know about Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
- The best platformers you can play right now
- The best video games based on movies
Release date
No official release date was made during the announcement of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake. However, given that Purple Lamp Studios could only begin working on this game after releasing SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated in the summer of 2020 and that the trailer had no gameplay, this feels like a game that’s still far off from release. Depending on the scope of the game, it could come sometime later in 2022, but 2023 feels like the safer assumption for when this title will actually hit.
Platforms
This is one of the strange points of this game. At the end of the trailer, we can see the usual listing of consoles and platforms the game will release on, which this time include PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. On one hand, a game like this does make sense to come out on the previous generation of consoles, but the fact that none of the current-gen systems are listed is concerning. Perhaps the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will be added later on, especially if the development timeline is what we assume it will be. If not, at least it will run via backward compatibility, but it feels like a weird move to make two or more years after these consoles have come out.
Trailer
The announcement trailer for SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a throwback to one of the show’s most iconic and popular episodes. It features all the iconic characters performing a cover of the song Sweet Victory as a purple portal opens up and sucks SpongeBob and Patrick into multiple locations and times, even transforming them into different forms. We also see some purple monsters that will probably act as the game’s primary enemies.
The trailer cycles through different areas and shows off SpongeBob wearing a variety of different themed outfits before concluding without so much as a single line of dialog or text aside from the title itself. Thankfully, more details were shared after the trailer from THQ Nordic to give us more details on what to expect.
The plot of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake revolves around SpongeBob and Patrick meeting a fortune-teller named Kassandra who grants them Mermaid’s Tears. These are able to grant the wishes of anyone with a pure heart. The pair, overly excited at the prospect of their wishes being granted, ends up making a series of wishes that begin to rip time and space apart. This leads to portals opening up that take them to strange and bizarre places as they try t0 save Bikini Bottom and its inhabitants.
Based on the trailer, we can expect to visit worlds themed around various time periods, including prehistoric cavemen, knights, and two confirmed worlds called Wishworlds — Wild West Jellyfish Fields and Halloween Rock Bottom. The soundtrack will also be composed of a huge 101 songs, including the trailer’s Sweet Victory.
Finally, despite the trailer not featuring any of them, we did get confirmation that all the characters in the game will be voiced by their original voice actors. Of them, so far, we have seen SpongeBob, Patrick, Plankton, Mr. Krabs, Sandy, Squidward, Mrs. Puff, and the Flying Dutchman.
Gameplay
The trailer was purely cinematic, but again, some details on the gameplay came after that reveal. According to THQ Nordic, the game will be another 3D platformer, somewhat like SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. They specifically point out that old and new platforming abilities will be in the game, such as the Fishhook Swing and Karate Kick. SpongeBob will also be featured in over 30 “F.U.Ntastic costumes,” such as SnailBob and SpongeGar as shown off in the trailer, and we can assume the cowboy and knight costumes will be included here, with possibly even the marching band outfit as well.
There will be a total of seven Wishworlds, two of which we already pointed out, leaving five more to be revealed. Whether or not these levels will be revisited with new moves and abilities, perhaps as a light Metroidvania system, or if they will be strictly linear, is still unknown. Aside from it just being a 3D platformer, we don’t even know if it will follow the same collectathon style of progression as Battle for Bikini Bottom, either. Based on the team’s experience with that game, and that being probably the most popular SpongeBob game yet, it would make sense for them to follow up on that formula here.
Multiplayer
There’s little reason to think that multiplayer will be included in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, at least as a main feature. SpongeBob will have his best friend, Patrick, only now turned into a balloon form, with him for the entire adventure, but that looks to be more for dialog reasons rather than a possible second playable character. On the other hand — and this is a stretch based on almost nothing — we could see there being some multiplayer mode where you play mini-games featured in the campaign. Until we even see this game in action, there’s no way to know what multiplayer plans there are or aren’t.
DLC
Likewise, DLC is another area that we can’t do anything but guess at right now. We’d like to hope this game comes out as a complete package since it would make the most sense if it were following the same formula as Battle for Bikini Bottom, but who knows. It seems like they’ve got a full-package game, assuming the seven worlds aren’t too short and the story wraps up by the end.
Pre-order
This one’s going to take a while to finish cooking, so be prepared to wait at least until next year to hear any details about pre-orders, if not longer. Hopefully, by the time pre-orders go up, we can add the current-gen consoles to the list of platforms, but either way, we’ll keep you up to date on all your pre-order options for SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake as soon as they’re announced.
